The Preventers—Retry Arc
by Dragonmaster870
Summary: The gods of misfortune are fickle indeed, and they have it out for the Puella Magi and their Preventer counterparts. What was once just a simple attempt to save the ones they care about is now something much, much more. Part two of the Preventers Saga.
1. Prologue: New Game

**Prologue: New Game**

* * *

[3rd Person POV]

He wakes up to the blank gray ceiling he's basically memorized due to how many hours he'd spent staring at it in the last few months. The air smelled like air sanitizer and rubbing alcohol, which is now probably his least odor combination. You know how if you hear a song over and over you start to get tired of it? That's sort of how he feels about that sanitary scent.

Yeah, it's about time to get out of here.

He gets up and feels a sharp pain in his left arm. Face scrunched up in pain, he looks down and sees the IV hooked up to his arm and the bandage wrapped over his forearm—one of the few lasting impressions an accident some months ago had left him with.

He lays back down and blows some of his bistre-colored hair out of his face. He was already beginning to feel restless, despite technically having been incredibly active mere moments ago.

__February 10th_, _he thinks, and then attempts to confirm that he went back to the date he requested, or if he even went back at all. If not, then...well...that would be weird. If that were the case, he would have been unconscious since his accident and everything that has happened the past month would be reduced to a dream. An almost comforting thought in retrospect, as that means he would have just imagined being part of the apocalypse and losing a good chunk of the people he cared about, including his childhood friend Miki Sayaka two times, and that he did not sell his soul for a wish and magic powers and wouldn't be fighting for the rest of his life.

Yes, that would be _wonderful_. But that would also mean that he would never be able to do what he loved and was best at ever again; playing the violin.

That realization instantly made him feel a little less happy about the possibility. He turns to the table beside the bed and picks up his phone to check the time and confirms that he did, in fact, travel back in time. He puts the phone back down and sighs in both relief and disappointment. He can't help but feel the risk outweighs the reward, but then again, maybe it didn't. But he knows that if he ever saw a drop of blood again, it would be too soon.

He shakes his head to break himself out of his lamentation. "No," He whispers. "You can't be second-guessing yourself now. You have a job to do."

As he sits idly in his bed, thinking of just what to do, he starts to try to move his fingers in his left hand and finds that no matter how hard he tries, he simply can't get the same range of motion he used to have. He groans internally at the handicap he has, thinking of just how troublesome it would be to heal the hand now and face the scrutiny of all the medical staff. _No, better to wait a little longer_, he thinks.

Just then, he hears a knock at the door. "Kamijou-san? Are you up?"

"Yes, come in."

The nurse was as always stunning with her kind hazel eyes and brown hair tied into a bun with two pencils. Yadotsu Kisa had been the nurse assigned to him when he was placed here in the hospital, and as such, he's had the heaviest interaction with her. And, quite frankly, she's the most enjoyable of all the staff to be around. Although she can be quite...pushy at times.

"It's time for your medicine," she says and wriggles around the orange cylinder that holds his pain pills. He doesn't really like taking the oxycodone they've prescribed him as it tends to make him sick, (he would much rather suffer the pain than weather the effects of the pills) but when Kisa is present, there's no getting out of it.

Thinking his status as a magical vessel will help with the side effects, he takes the pills down dry and thanks her for bringing his medicine, which she responds to with a curt nod of her head.

"Do you need anything else?" She asks.

He shakes his head. "No, Yadotsu-san. I'm fine, thank you."

"Alright," she responds, not quite ready to accept that as per usual, but concedes nonetheless. As per usual, if he might add. "I'll come to check on you later." She begins to walk to the door and looks back to say, "See you."

"See you later."

And with that, nurse Kisa exits the room, shutting the door most of the way as she leaves, just as he used to ask her to. By now it's an unspoken rule between him and the other staff that the door to his room is closed or ajar during times that school is in session. The only time it's open is during hours Sayaka would visit, which is normally right after school, but they leave it open until she actually shows up as she sometimes runs 'late' trying to look for 'get well' gifts to bring him. Which, he should point out, is not really necessary. Though he doesn't mind a gift every once in a while, he's beginning to wonder where he's going to keep all the stuff she brings him, and where she's getting all of her money from, for that matter. His CD rack is already full, and he has enough music stacked up in here with him to fill up another one.

He wrings his hands and starts to wonder just what it was that was going on around this time last timeline. He has the feeling something noteworthy should have started happening somewhere in February during the last loop, and he has the desire to confirm if anything big is going on right now. Grabbing the remote, he smacks it a few times to make sure it works then clicks to the news channel.

On the screen, a picture of a bloodied room is shown with the caption, 'Mitakihara Lower Secondary School student missing.'

_Huh? Someone at my school?_

The news reporter continues with, "This is Asakura Yurine reporting that third-year Mitakihara Lower Secondary School student Tomoe Mami was reported missing as of yesterday morning. When authorities arrived at her apartment the place was found ransacked with blood spattered on the walls that was confirmed to belong to her and bullet holes all over the room. The investigation is ongoing, but the police report that it is unlikely for her to be alive due to the amount of blood in the room. If anyone knows anything about this incident, call 1-800-552-7463. Back to you, Morikawa-san."

"Tomoe-san's been kidnapped?" He whispers incredulously. His senior and Puella Magi is the most skilled and experienced fighter he's ever seen, even more so than Reshigi Rin, his friend Keishoutto Kyousuke's half-brother. To think that someone could sneak into her home and grab her is something that sends chills down his spine. There are a few things he can say for certain about the perpetrator. One: He or she must have contracted.

Two: They are a force to be reckoned with.

"...number of disappearances in Mitakihara and Kasamino have been steadily increasing. In the past two weeks at least five people have been reported missing in the same manner, which is abnormally high, even for these two cities' reputations..."

As he listens to the increasingly morbid news report he gets a strong sense of foreboding as he goes from person to person in his mind, wondering if anyone else had been abducted.

_Calm down_, he thinks to himself, doing his best to achieve just that, but is having no luck. He's feeling worse and worse through every second he sits idle in this godforsaken hospital, and his miasma is slowly turning to anger.

"Screw it. I'm getting out of here." He sits upright and grips one of the tubes in his arm, but he's stopped as nausea overtakes him. He only barely managed to turn his head before he puked on the linoleum floor.

* * *

She felt refreshed. And full. Very full.

Moments before, she 'liberated' a meal from some customer in the _Dicey Café._ Even though it was partly eaten and nearly cold, she ate it gratefully without prejudice, but not before she scolded the customer for almost wasting his food. She had been eyeing the man in the café ever since she sat down in the restaurant, and she even stayed after she finished her own meal just to see if the ungrateful man would finish his food. The moment she saw him get up with his mostly neglected food in hand, she lost it and gave the man a piece of her mind. Very rudely, if she might add, but then again, he got what was coming to him, probably. He did sort of look like a pedophile with his thin mustache and goatee, squinty eyes and almost perpetual smirk.

Now that she thinks of it, maybe eating after the man wasn't such a good idea after all. For all she knows, he was probably 'eating' something else earlier, which was why he didn't have room for his food.

She kind of wishes she didn't eat that, now. She spits on the ground and rubs her tongue with the sleeve of her Mitakihara Lower Secondary School uniform. Her crimson eyes squint in disgust at the recent thought and she brushes some of her matching hair out of her face. It occurred to her that she had not even a hint of a clue as to what to do now, so she settles with going to home to her now-best friend, Miki Sayaka. She begins in the direction of the bluenette's house and thinks of when they first met, which, for Sayaka, was the third of February, but for her was technically next month.

Time-travel can be sort of screwy sometimes.

When they first met from Sayaka's perspective Kyoko was sleeping on the bench in one of the parks in Mitakihara and the bluenette hit her dead in the face with a soccer ball.

Not the most graceful of introductions, but Kyoko had dealt with worse.

After that, they'd practically become best friends. Which was not too surprising for the redhead due to the fact that she didn't really have any, but she had to say that for Sayaka it was something more noteworthy. Now she was 'freeloading' at Sayaka's place as she calls it, but she was the one that invited her to stay, so what does she expect? It's not like she can chip in, anyway.

As she walks past one of the electronics stores she checks the date on the television and sees it's February 10th. A Tuesday; something she should have noticed, given that she was suffering through schooling for the majority of her waking hours. But then again, she was really only awake during lunch time and breaks. Which, she should point out, is not really her fault. Maybe, if those deadbeat teachers would _attempt_ to make their lessons halfway interesting rather than wasting their breath for ninety minutes on the ears of children who don't really give a fuck, then maybe she would_ attempt_ to keep her eyes open during their class.

Needless to say, her pleas would fall on their ears the same way their words fall on hers: unheard.

She lets out a contented sigh. Just days ago the fate of the world rested on her and a few others' shoulders, and before then she was just barely scraping by in life. Now she's been lowered to having first-world problems.

And speaking of first-world problems: she has a shitload of homework and way too much free time on her hands to focus on it. If she actually sat down and did the work, it would take her an hour at most. She wasn't stupid, not by a longshot, but all of this living in the streets and not attending school for three or four years put her at a slight disadvantage compared to other students. That, and she's incredibly lazy. Or rather, she has no drive to do well in school unless Sayaka's riding her ass about it because school is basically an excuse for her to stay close to the Blueberry.

Yeah, there are probably a few lesbian undertones in there somewhere, and she knows that, but it's the truth. She's only attending Mitakihara Lower Secondary to keep an eye on Sayaka and make sure she doesn't get hurt. Looking back, she seems a bit like Akemi Homura, the time-traveler that set everything in motion last timeline and is soon to show up in this one, but the difference between the two of them is that she's doing this to protect this girl whom she's in love with _platonically _(or at least, she assumes it's platonically since she hasn't really been in love before), while Homie is head-over-heels for the girl she's trying to protect by going back in time over and over again, Kaname Madoka.

That girl Madoka just so happened to be the epicenter of her original timeline. Any move she made directly affected either Homura or Keishoutto Kyousuke, which in turn severely affected the rest of them unfortunate enough to be caught up in the moves of their fancy little dance. Hence the pinkette turning into the most powerful witch to have ever existed, Kriemhild Gretchen and causing the apocalypse. Cue desperate time-travel effort on Nakazawa Hideki's part, her classmate and magical boy who sent them back in time.

She doesn't particularly like the boy, but she supposes she'll have to deal with it because she owes him her life, which isn't something she's too thrilled about. She hates being in debt because it's a hole that just keeps digging itself deeper, keeping you imprisoned within the confines of the pit, and she despises being imprisoned or helpless, even more so than wasting food, and that's saying something.

Take a guess at what her worst nightmare is.

Now lacking anything to think about, she continues her walk to the Miki family's apartment in physical and mental silence, and before long she turns onto the road where the complex is is standing proud. She enters the building and takes the elevator up to the second floor and walks into the apartment through the unlocked door.

She strides up to the door and takes a deep breath, preparing herself for whatever Sayaka will throw her way, and then throws open the front door and announces, "I'm home!"

She remains in her spot and looks around for her target, and sees her with her head down at the dining room table, seemingly sleeping, which honestly is not like her, not with her energy levels. Normally she'll only sleep when it's time to, which is late at night, maybe around midnight or so. Which almost positively means something is up.

Tucking her mischievous attitude away for the moment, she moves cautiously to the Blueberry's side and realizes she's not sleeping; she's simply facedown over top of a piece of paper, breathing hard enough to be mistaken for hyperventilation.

_Geez, what did she do now?_

"Oi, Sayaka. What's the problem?"

She looks up at her and then motions to the paper underneath her arm.

"What's that?"

She hands her the paper and her eyes widen as she understands the reason for her sadness. It's a math test paper reading a less than acceptable test score by both her and the bluenette's standards.

"I got a 10 on this, Kyoko! A freaking _10_! When my parents see this, there won't be anything left of me in the morning but a _stain!_"

Kyoko chuckles nervously. What Sayaka said wasn't too much of an exaggeration, and her parents' wrath won't be guaranteed to stop at Sayaka, looking at how quickly they became attached to her. She didn't get too good of a grade on her math paper, either (though it was a bit better than hers; she got a 25), and her parents are most definitely going to ask about her grades as well, something she's not looking forward to. "Hey, Sayaka, I didn't get too much of a good grade on mine either. But I'm sure your parents won't hurt us! At least, I hope they aren't..."

She scoffs. "Yeah, sure. It's a mindset like that that makes you let your guard down, and right when you least expect it the sucker punch comes and puts you to sleep."

She raises an eyebrow in nervous inquiry. Here's a clear exaggeration. Or, at least, she hopes it is. "Come on, Sayaka. Your parents at least keep an open hand to keep the law off their asses, right?"

"My dad has to, but my mom goes no-holds-barred. She punched me so hard in the gut last year that I puked all over the floor." She shakes her head, as if clearing her head of the memory and says, "But that was before my mom went to anger management classes."

She releases a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"That doesn't mean things are any easier." She brushes her hair back behind her ear and leans back against the chair. "Last time I came home with a bad grade on something, she took away my allowance and forced me to find my own food for _three days_. She even put a padlock on the fridge."

She decided against telling her that she could just yank off the padlock if she needed to due to her enhanced strength. No need to expose herself yet. "I can take the beating, but no food? That's my kryptonite!"

Sayaka scoffs again and waves her hand. "Yeah, yeah, Kyo-tan. I know how much you love food."

"No, you don't, Sayaka. You can't even understand how much I love food. It cannot be measured!" She holds her hands as far apart as she could to further her point.

Sayaka gets up and pats Kyoko on the shoulder and takes her paper. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, Kyo-tan. Let's just get our homework done and think of something that will make my parents less angry."

Hopefully she's kidding about the whole 'get our homework done' part, the redhead thinks, but has her hopes squashed when Sayaka retrieves her bag from the couch in the family room.

She sighs and mumbles multiple complaints under her breath, but she still goes to pick up her bag from the front door and follows Sayaka to her—or rather, their room.

_Oh, well. Hopefully I can think of something while we're doing the homework, _I think, and continue on my way to her room.

* * *

**A/N: That's that. The introductory chapter to the Retry Arc. I'm planning on having some fun with this one. Rate and review, etc., and I'll see you guys next time.**


	2. Chapter 1: Abduction

**Chapter 1: Abduction**

* * *

[Kyoko's POV]

A wave of freezing cold leaves me feeling as if I'm drowning again.

Last timeline, myself, those Kamijou, Keishoutto and Nakazawa boys, Keishoutto-san's half-brother, that Obito brat, and Homura decided to assault the witch Walpurigis Nacht from all sides, something we all thought would work, but of course the universe, being the sick bastard it is, decided to give the witch the fucking Force Repulse skill and blew everyone to hell at a million miles an hour. If Hell was wet and cold, that is, as I was blasted into the water, which, by the way, felt like concrete for how I hit it, and I damn near drowned, a feeling that if you're fortunate will only be able to speculate about. But if you're not so lucky, you get to know that getting even close to drowning feels way worse than you think it does.

Needless to say, I _do not_ want to experience that again.

On instinct, I leap out of what I'm pretty sure is the bed I share with Sayaka and not the sea floor and face my attacker, ready to do to them what Walpurgis did to me, until I see a very terrified looking blue-haired girl staring at me.

_Whoops_, I think, feeling a little stupid that I freaked out like that in front of her.

"J-just how long did you expect to sleep, K-Kyo-tan?"

I take a deep breath and relax myself and manage to say, "G-good morning, Sayaka."

That apparently was a bad move on my part, as Sayaka's mouth hangs agape as she now stares at me disbelievingly.

_W-what'd I do_, I wonder in my mind..

"What, no smart-ass rebuttal?" She presses the back of her hand against my forehead, the caring motive seeming oddly out of place, due to her attitude. "Are you feeling okay, Kyoko?"

I inspect myself sarcastically. "I'm soaked, I've just been woken up in one of the cruelest ways known to man, and I feel like I just took a dive in the Arctic Ocean. So yeah, couldn't be better."

She knits her eyebrows in disapproval, probably because of the way I responded to her genuine concern right there, but...whatever, y'know? I can always make up for it. If there's one thing that I know about Sayaka, it's that she can be childishly simple sometimes, though I know I have no right to say anything; I've devoted my whole essence to food and all, but I'm simply too amazing for anyone to point that out.

A powerful shudder reverberates throughout my body, and even more of the battle last timeline intrudes on my conscious, but this time I don't mind so much. This memory, I had managed to pull myself up the side of the promenade from the water, but as I started to reached the top, my already weak self decided to get weaker, and magic did absolutely nothing to help in that regard. It's like that radial blast-thingy from Walpurgis was magical girl kryptonite or something. Just as I was about to fall, Homura managed to pull me up, thank the Lord...actually, scratch that. Let's go with fortunately. Yeah, that'll work.

But anyway, definitely a calm period between two storms. Especially when Homura decided to take advantage of my weakness and made a move on me...well...not really, but I have to say it felt damn good to be that close to her, despite her personality. She's harsh and serious under normal circumstances, but it looks like she has a rather fragile side. Mmm, something I'd love to exploit later on; that girl needs to be shown a good time, properly.

A hand in my face wakes me from my reverie.

"Um...Kyo-tan? Are you sure you're okay? You're face is flushed. And your drool—wait a minute! You're thinking of something perverted, aren't you?"

"Huh?" I wipe my mouth with my sleeve. "Oh, no. Not really. At least, not by my standards."

She crosses her arms and stares at me intensely and mumbles, "That means it's definitely something naughty." She turns and stalks out of the room. "Hurry up and get dressed; we still have to go to school, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." I walk to the closet and throw open its doors, then grab the nearest uniform and change out of Sayaka's borrowed pajamas. "Geez, who told her to go and be all responsible?" I mutter as I pull on my sock. Not that I really have a problem, it was just sort of...weird, you know? I didn't exactly expect her to act like that._  
_

I slip on my shoes and walk down the hallway, to where Sayaka is sitting in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal in hand.

"Aw, Sayaka-chan, you won't honor me with your magnificent cooking today?"

She sighs condescendingly and flips between channels. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Kyoko."

"I beg to differ."

She points to the kitchen with the remote control. "Your apples are in the fridge, and your bento's on the counter."

I walk over to the refrigerator and open and I do in fact see my paper bag of apples in the fridge. "Huh. So that's where they went..." I pick one out of the bag and grip it with my teeth, then grab another two in my hands and shut the door. I then pinch the cloth of the bento in between my ring and pinky fingers. "San kyuu, Shayaka."

"Don't mention it," She responds and places her bowl in the sink, despite what I said being nearly incoherent to the normal ear. I guess being childhood friends with Madoka raised her ability to understand gibberish. I mean, Pinkie's practically fluent in the language when she's flustered.

Sayaka turns off the TV, picks her bag up off of the couch, and walks to the door, seemingly eager to get to school. I, on the other hand, move at a much slower pace, walking slowly to our room to retrieve my own bag, and then back down the hallway to the door and slip on my shoes, while eating an apple, carrying two others and a bento.

"You're moving like pond water. And pond water doesn't move."

"I'm sorry, I don't see nor smell a fire," I rebut, and nudge the door with my foot. "You know we can't go anywhere if you don't open the door, right?"

She glares at me, and I can feel her frustration start to build up. "Last time I checked, the only thing about you that was crippled is your morals. Open it yourself."

I hold up my bag and my apples. "As you can see, my hands are a bit full."

Her eye twitches as she stands there with her fists clenched, but still opens the door. "Sometimes you make me want to hit you."

I flash my signature grin at her and nuzzle her head with my own as I walk past her. "Love you too, Sayaka."

* * *

I yawn and stretch as the bell rings, signaling for our lunch break.

"That...was boring...as hell."

Normally I would just sleep through the lectures, but today was something different. Today I feel...terrible. Not sick, just terrible. Like something fucked up is going to happen today. The knock-your-socks-off type of fucked up.

_What the hell?_

To think I was in such a good mood when I left this morning...just what's going to happen?

I sigh and look out of the window, and notice a girl with black hair and brown eyes wearing a very asymmetrical outfit that vaguely resembles the school's uniform (complete with a pink plaid half skirt, an exaggerated tie with balls on the end, a strap secured around her left thigh, and a pink and black striped sock on her left leg, she's quite the sight), running from another student, but not in the playful way this girl is normally seen behaving. Tailing her is a boy with messy grey hair and a plain white mask on his face, writing things in a notebook as he gives chase.

_A mask? Maybe that Rin kid's just being a creep? No...no, he wouldn't go that far if he wasn't going to get any, plus his hair is purple...So then who the hell is it?_

But then I notice something off about the scene: no one's acknowledging the two of them running through the grounds. Even when the girl crashes into some poor boy he just ignores them and continues about his business.

Cursing under my breath, I rush out of the classroom and make my way as fast as I can outside.

_Don't do it, Kyoko. It's none of your business._

_But it feels wrong for me to just sit around, _I argue with myself in my head, officially branding myself as a person in need of a shrink.

_Fine, then. Don't blame me when you're six feet under._

_Gee, thanks for the support._

I fly through the doors and slide to a stop, looking all around for them, and hear a thump coming from around the corner.

Rushing around the corner, I see the boy standing over the girl, who's bound and gagged in chains.

"I apologize, Kure-san, but a job is a job," The boy says, and summons a ring blade, just like the one Nakazawa uses.

_What the hell? Wasn't Nakazawa asleep in the classroom?_

He raises the blade over his head and continues, "You may not like the circumstances, but you'll be reuniting with your beloved Mikuni-san before long."

_You had my curiosity, stranger, but now you have my attention._

I step forward and summon my spear, but before I can do anything my whole body becomes numb and I fall to the ground.

_S-shit! What now?_

He brings the blade down but pulls up at the last second, leaving a cut on her arm, and then he sets the blade down and lifts her up by her collar, then tosses her in the ring, then pulls out his notebook again and scribbles something on the page, then dips his pen in the blood on the blade and continues his scribbling.

I attempt to wriggle away from this psycho, and I manage to crawl for a good three seconds before my body gives out and I lay helpless on the ground. Then I try to scream, but my voice box seems to be as numb as the rest of my body.

Regardless I continue to struggle, but then I feel the tug on my collar as the mystery man lifts me off of the ground as well.

_God damn it! Get off of me, you freak! _I scream internally, hoping to be able to project it through thoughts even without Kyuubey, but of course he doesn't hear me. Instead he takes my finger and runs it across the blade, cutting it, and then he drops me in front of the blade and pulls his notebook back out, dipping the pen in my blood as well and continues scribbling, then he puts it away and holds out his hand. Blocks of black and red swirl in his palm to form a grenade.

My eyes widen at the sight of the weapon, and I find myself wondering two things: where it came from and what he plans to do with it.

"This is a blood grenade. It's name is pretty self-explanatory; it's a grenade that contains blood. It explodes, and blood splatters _everywhere. _This one has your blood, Sakura-san, and Kure Kirika's. When I took you two's blood I replicated the little amount I took so that it fills the grenade," He explains, then removes the pin. "When the authorities come and see the amount of blood on these walls, they won't spend too much time looking for you two. Which means I have all of the time in the world to set the scene." He tosses the grenade behind his back and grips me again by the collar. Then he says in my ear, "We're about to have some fun, the three of us. I hope you're ready."


	3. Chapter 2: Arrival

**Chapter 2: Arrival**

* * *

[Kyou's POV]

I wake up sweating in a bed.

Looking around the room, I discover that it's my own.

"H-huh?" I whisper to myself. I was just facing off with a legion of black angels—the familiars of a witch of 'salvation' called Kriemhild Gretchen, who also happened to be the witch of my friend Kaname Madoka. I remember riding in a semi-truck modified to transport people, and a conversation with my friends Nakazawa Hideki and Kamijou Kyousuke. I don't quite remember what was said, but the words 'abandoned all hope' and 'no chance' come to mind, so I assume that we find out that we can't win. After that it's a bit blurry, but I do remember some of the witch's familiars charging me, and me telling Hideki to get everyone to the next timeline, but it's a mystery what happens after that.

Weird.

I place my hand to my chest and feel the familiar white crucifix-shaped necklace. A necklace that just so happens to house my soul gem, the container of my soul that I received as a result of a contract I made with an alien. I make a wish, and in exchange the alien takes my soul, relocates it and tasks me with protecting the Puella Magi, or magical girls, who protect the peace by hunting witches—the manifestations of human negativity and curses.

I take a look at my clock and see it's seven o'clock. Sadly my clock only tells me the time, not the date. A calendar has never been graced as to enter my room, but now I'm thinking I should probably consider getting one.

I reluctantly rise from my bed and make my way to the bathroom to do my hygiene and determine if Hideki managed to send me back in time as well, but as I rise something tickles my back. I reach back, feeling for the object, and when I find it I yank it.

Bad idea.

My head jerks in response, and it's then that I realize that it's hair I just yanked on. My hair. Which is much, much longer than the hair I had mere minutes ago from my perspective, which only reached my shoulders. Now, as I stand up, the hair looks to be nearly knee length.

I would be calling this weird, but technically this was my signature hair style before I got it cut on my birthday, February 20th. So I suppose I'll roll with it for now.

I walk to the bathroom and inspect myself in the mirror. My purple hair is now nearly knee-length, my turquoise eyes don't have the same bags under them, and, upon further inspection, I'm lacking the scar on my abdomen that I received when I lost my first life.

"Huh. Maybe this ain't so bad," I say as I continue examining myself. "But for now," I grab hold of some of my hair and hold it to the light, "I have to do something about this."

I used to wear my hair out, but back then I didn't really do anything besides ride my bike. I don't even think I did that much in P.E., either. What I did in active situations was...

Put it in a ponytail.

Thus began the start of my ponytail-wearing era.

"Hmm...Maybe a change of style is good, every once in a while. What do you think, Rei?" I had already adjusted the ponytail a few times and began to brush my teeth when I realize I was seeking an opinion. Out loud. From Rei. Which really isn't a problem, given that my family already thinks I'm on the loopy side. I can always just play it off. The real problem is the lack of response. Given his attitude, you'd think he'd be totally fired up and firing off snarky comments left and right because of him losing his time-travel virginity.

_'Oi, Rei? You there?'_

Still no answer. Weird. But that's something for later. For now, I need to—

"KYAAAA! MOM, STOP IT!"

I sigh in exasperation. It is _way _too early for my mom and sister's shenanigans.

I walk out of the bathroom and walk to my sister's room. I stop in front of the door and take a deep breath to steel myself with for whatever it is I'm about to see.

I throw open the door and say, "Hey! What are you two doing in..."

The only thing I can think of when I see the scene is 'pornography'.

"Uh...Mom? Nanime? Why aren't you guys wearing clothes?"

My mom pushes herself off of Nanime and faces me. "Here's a better question: why are _you _wearing clothes?"

_Why, she asks? _"That's totally not the better question. Just what do you think you're doing?"

Nanime pushes herself up with her face flushed. "Well, I had a weird dream where you were trying to breast feed from Mom, and when Mom woke me up I asked her how it felt to have her breasts sucked, and then...this happened."

"Ah, yes. That's exactly how it happened. But why is this bothering _you_ of all people, Kyou?"

_Why, she asks?_

"Come to think of it, you are acting a bit weird," Nanime comments, "Responsible, even."

My mother steps forward and forces all of her 157 centimeters of height upon me. "So here's my question: Who are you, and what have you done with my son?"

My sister walks forward and places her hand on Mom's shoulder. "No, Mom. That's the wrong question. The person standing in front of us is definitely my big brother. What I really want to know is just what happened to you, Kyou."

_Oh, crap... _"Er...um..." _Shit! What am I supposed to say?_

An uncomfortable silence fills the room as I'm stared down by my family, who are eagerly awaiting my answer. One I'm not sure I should give out right now.

Then my mom steps back and shrugs her shoulders. "Oh, well. Better think of your answer now, because if you don't have it after school we're going to beat it out of you," she says, and then walks out of the room without another word.

I remember the last time I had treatment like this from those two. I think I was hospitalized for at least a week with internal bleeding or something like that. When the doctors asked my parents what had happened, they said I got jumped by a group of thugs.

"O-okay."

My sister gets up and walks up to me as well, buck-naked if I might add. "I'm looking forward to seeing you work your way out of this, wordsmith."

I immediately turn my head. "Whatever. Put some clothes on."

She chuckles. "Oh yeah, you're definitely not yourself."

"Huh?" _Just how different is the me from this timeline?_

"You were never so...gentleman-y, you know? But anyway," She grabs me by the shoulders and turns me around, "we've got to get ready for school. We take off for school in T-minus twenty minutes, Kyou." She shoves me out of the doorway and closes the door.

"Sheesh," I whisper to myself. "With things as they are, it looks like I have my work cut out for me." I return to my room and go to the closet to get dressed, but realize immediately that along with my usual male uniforms in my closet there are also a few girls' uniforms as well.

_...What kind of joke is this?_

Electing to ignore the frightening wardrobe for now, I pull out a boys' uniform and get dressed and then make my way to the stairs, deciding that it's in my best interests to get out of the house as quickly as I can. I might even skip breakfast and leave now. That'll land me at school a half an hour before school starts.

But before I can even reach the railing Nanime exits her room, thankfully fully-clothed in her Mitakihara Lower Secondary School uniform. Come to think of it, I think she looks like I would in the girls' uniform in my closet.

My sister and I are...beautiful, I suppose. My sister is adorable; a knockout from nearly all perspectives, and I, well...I can say the same about myself. We're practically twins, despite the one year age deficit between us. Same purple hair, same turquoise eyes. The only difference is obviously her anatomy. That and her hair is shorter and tied into two braids. What I'm trying to say is that if you don't know me, and I really try to act like a girl, I could make the boys swoon. And even if you did know me, I could still make you mighty uncomfortable.

She sees me and flashes a smile. "Oh, Nii-san. So you're still here. I'd have expected you to have ran after hearing the threat Mom issued."

I scoff. "Yeah. I still haven't crossed that idea off of my list y—wait, _Nii-san?_"

She looks at me like I'm crazy. "Yeah. I mean, last time I checked, you _were_ my brother. Unless you really are an impostor. Then I'll have to kill you." She then fixes on me with a menacing gaze as she steps closer to me.

"B-but I'm not an impostor, so there's no need for that," I plead in an effort to disarm the weapon I call my sister.

She steps back and grins at me again with her hands behind her back. "Just kidding!"

I release the breath I was holding. "Sheesh, Nanime. Don't scare me like that."

"Hmm..." She places a hand on her chin and scrutinizes me, seeming to be in thought. "You know, Nii-san, I think I like this version of you better."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Well," she starts down the stairs and motions for me to follow, "you're more gentle, for one. Normally, whenever I would pull something like that, you'd mush me and continue about your business." She stops in the living room and grabs the remote to the TV and hands it to me. "Turn it to the news; you seem like you need a refresher. You want your usual for breakfast, right?"

"Uh, y-yeah. Sure." I heed Nanime's request and turn it to the news, and what I hear rocks my world.

_"It seems the serial kidnapper has struck again, bringing the number of people he's kidnapped to a total of thirteen. Yesterday police were notified of a scene in the neighboring Asunaro City, where blood was found in extensive amounts around the crime scene in a similar fashion to the other kidnappings that have happened since the beginning of the month. The house where the scene was located was the residence of the young author of the novel Maps, Letters, and Love Songs Misaki Umika, and the blood of her and two others; Maki Kaoru and Kazusa Michiru were identified to be there." _On the television screen shows pictures of the three girls mentioned. One girl has dark blue shoulder-length hair and blue eyes; that's the author. Another named Maki Kaoru has golden yellow shoulder-length hair and the eyes to match, and the final girl, Kazusa Michiru, has long black hair and ruby eyes.

_"Around the same time, at the Asunaro Dome, there was a more extreme scene. The structure was ransacked, and the blood of four others was identified at the scene: Asami Saki, Wakaba Mirai, Hijiri Kanna, and Asagi Satomi."_ More pictures show up. The first girl, Asami Saki has shoulder-length white hair and muted reddish-purple eyes, Wakaba Mirai has long poofy pink hair and purple eyes, Hijiri Kanna has whitish-blonde hair tied into two low pigtails and greyish-blue eyes, and Usagi Satomi has chin-length poofy brown hair and the same color eyes.

_"And the owner of the restaurant Bistro Tachibana named Tachibana Souichirou has also gone missing in the same manner."_ Tachibana Souichirou's picture shows up, depicting him with slicked-down light brown hair and brown eyes._ "The authorities have decided that no one be out of their homes during the late hours, and if the situation is absolutely unavoidable, travel with a partner or group."_

_What the hell is this? A serial kidnapper? Twelve victims? Did Hideki drop me in the middle of some mystery novel?_

"What's wrong with you, Nii-san?" Nanime asks as she hands me a tray with a piece of toast, a banana, and a cup of tea, then sits down with her own. "Oh, this, huh? I guess that _is_ pretty freaky." As she continues to look at the screen, her eyes get wider and wider. "So this kidnapper's targeting celebrities, too? Maki Kaoru is legendary beyond her years in soccer, Misaki Umika is an incredible author, and Tachibana Souichirou is known throughout Japan—maybe even the world for his Lots o' Parfait dessert! I wonder what the kidnapper wants with them?"

_That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? Just what does he or she intend to do with them? _"Hey, Nanime? The reporter said there were thirteen victims so far."

"Yep. That's what it looks like," she says through bites of her toast.

"Who else was kidnapped?"

She looks at me curiously. "Oh, so you're still trying to find out the kidnapper's motives, huh?" She sets down her tray and walks upstairs. "I'll be right back with the list, okay?"

"Okay." _I don't think I'll ever get used to how nice Nanime is being right now._

"Hey, Nii-san? Where's my laptop?" Nanime asks from the banister.

"I don't know. Why would I even have it," I respond, and when she hears that she sighs.

"Because you asked me to use it for 'research' last night, that's why." She makes quotation sign with her fingers when she says 'research'.

I hold my hands up in innocence, and she sighs again and walks in the direction of my room, and seconds later she returns with her laptop closed under her arm. She sits down on the couch and pats the seat beside her. "Come here, Nii-san."

"Why," I ask, but heeding her request nonetheless.

"Because," she says as she sets the laptop on my lap, opens it, and puts in the password, "You're going to show me just what you were 'researching' last night."

"Um...okay..." I pull up the web browser and she grabs my hand, directing it to the 'history' tab and clicking on the most recent entry: _Imouto Paradise_. She scrolls down to the video and clicks fullscreen. After a few seconds of buffering, we see something less than suitable for kids for the fourteen and thirteen year olds me and my sister are. It's genre is 'pornography', and it's of the animated variety.

I stare dumbstruck at the screen as Nanime pauses the video and looks at me with a bemused expression. "Nii-san, why were you looking at indecent things on my laptop?"

The only thing I think to say is, "W-what are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about." She says. I simply gulp my response, and she presses play on the video and fast-forwards. "Tell me, what is this girl doing?"

_Is she really going to make me explain to her?_ For sake of not tainting my sister anymore than she already is, I say, "She's eating a sausage," with the most sincere tone I can muster.

She stare gets more intense as she clearly doesn't buy my explanation. "You know, Nii-san, I don't hate siscons. If you really want to do this to your little sister, I don't mind." She starts leaning into me and tucks some of her hair behind her ear.

"N-Nanime..."

"Yes, Nii-san?" She looks up at me with an expression so sweet it gave me cavities.

_Oh, no. No, no, no! My little sister can't be this cute!_

Then I notice my Mom staring at the two of us from in front of the TV.

"You two done?" She asks irately, and shoots both of us a less-than-friendly look.

Even though we see her, it takes us a second to realize that she was present.

"You two; out. Now."

"Y-yes ma'am," We say simultaneously, then gather our stuff and rush out of the house.

But the rushing stopped at the door. The second we cleared the door, our run slowed down to a leisurely stroll.

Nanime turns around and starts walking backwards. "So, what happened to you, Nii-san? You can tell me, now that we're away from Mom."

"Uh..." I sigh as I figure that she'd be the easier one to break the news to. "It's kind of a long story..."

She shrugs her shoulders. "We've plenty of time, Nii-san. Mom forced us out of the door ten minutes early, you know."

"Oh. Well...to give you the Cliff Notes version, I'm from the future." I pause to let her get whatever reaction she has out of her system, but surprisingly she only nods and motions for me to move on.

_Hmm. I expected more of a response from that. _

"At the end of next month, a witch called—" I stop as I realize something; this timeline's Nanime might not even be aware of the Puella Magi system. For one, Kyuubey wasn't hanging around the house like he usually does, and I never checked Mom for her ring. "Tell you what; have you heard about the Hinamizawa Disaster of '83, or the Rokkenjima Mass Murder Incident of '86?"

She nods.

"Okay, now imagine what happened there, only on a worldwide scale. That's what goes down at the end of March. But before that it happens on a city-wide scale. Someone turns Mitakihara into a reenactment of the Hinamizawa Disaster, and not even a week later uses the world as a stage for their sick reenactment of the Rokkenjima Mass Murder Incident."

"Whoa," she mutters, and turns back around to walk beside me. "That's...pretty crazy. To think something like that would happen in our lifetime...no wonder you're so different."

"Yeah."

We walk in silence until we reach the stairs leading to the school entrance, and then Nanime stops. "Hey, Nii-san?"

"Yes?"

"If you're here, what happened to the Kyou I know?"

_That...is a very good question. _"You know...that's the first time I thought of that. I'll ask the person who sent me back later."

"Okay," Nanime says, and then continues her trek up the stairs. She stops once she reaches the top and turns back to look at me. "You never got the list you asked for, did you?"

I shake my head. "No, I guess I didn't."

"Well you're in luck," she says, and points at me, "Because we're here extra early, you should have time to get a copy yourself. Talk to the Computer Club president Kobayashi Katsuo and ask him to print one out for you."

I nod as I reach the top of the stairs. "Alright. Thanks, sis."

"No problem, Nii-san," she responds, and then we both enter the building.

We walk in silence until we part ways at the junction of the first-year hallway and the main one, where she waves goodbye and turns right and I continue forward, towards the stairwell.

As I approach the stairs I shudder as I suddenly feel a wave of...malevolence reverberate throughout my whole body.

_What the hell was that?_

I shake my head to try and dismiss the feeling as I ascend the steps to the second floor, the floor for second-year classes and most of the club facilities.

_Kobayashi Katsuo, huh? That's a new name. I wonder what he's like, _I think as I turn left towards the Computer Club room. Once I reach the door I take a deep breath and knock. "Hello? Is Kobayashi Katsuo-san in here?"

"Yes, " a distant voice calls from inside the room, "Come in, please."

I walk in to see your generic nerd type by the only light in the room; his computer screen. Slightly messy black hair, blue eyes covered by rectangular eyeglasses and an impeccable school uniform with a sash representing a seat on the student council. He's furiously typing away on his laptop at his desk in front of the window, which is in turn in front of rows upon rows of computers.

Without looking up he asks, "So what brings you here, Kyou-san?"

Assuming he knows who I am through peripheral vision, I get straight to the point, "Pardon my intrusion, but I was wondering if I could print out—"

"A copy list of the victims of the new serial kidnapper," he finishes for me, then reaches to the printer and says, "Sure, I have that."

"How—"

"Did I know what you were going to say? Because I can use magic," he explains, and my eyes widen.

_Another Preventer? Just how many of us are th—_

He busts out laughing. "Just kidding, Kyou-san. You're always asking me for another copy when the body count is updated. You've told me many a time you're trying to determine the kidnapper's motive."

"Oh," I say, feeling stupid for thinking that.

He continues typing and asks, "Do you want the date and where the crime scene was located on the files as well?"

"Yes, please," I say, and he nods his acknowledgement.

After a few seconds of nothing but listening to his fingers tap on the keys, the printer flashes on and prints out quite a few pages—thirteen to be exact. After they're all printed out he pulls a manila folder from out of his desk and places the papers inside of it, then hands it to me. "Make sure you tell me what you find out, okay?"

"Alright. See you later, then."

"Yeah," he waves and then resumes his furious typing. One that I find you can hear from the hallway if you listen hard enough.

_Sheesh. Just what is he writing anyway? _ I wonder as I open the folder and look at the papers. On the front is a picture of the restaurant owner Tachibana Souichirou that I saw on the news, including some personal information like height, weight, birth date, hometown, place of residence, and occupation. A bit extensive if you ask me, but the more information I have, it should make things to find out what they all have in common.

I walk to my classroom while reading through the papers. At least, until I reach the classroom door. I put up the files and tuck it under my arm, then step inside.

Inside the activities vary from playing card games like _Magic: The Gathering _to gossiping, from sleeping to horseplaying. A typical middle-school scene, I guess. I walk to my seat, relieved that I'm pretty much ignored as always, but I'm heavily studying the people in classroom. As I hold my ponytail up and sit down I notice across the room Miki Sayaka and Kaname Madoka are conversing happily, which is a good thing. The happier they are, the less likely things are to completely dissolve in front of my face. The seat in front of me and beside me hold only the bags of Kamijou Kyousuke and Nakazawa Hideki, meaning they're elsewhere in the school right now.

A shame, really, that they're not here right now. I'm sure they'd be excited to see me, plus I have a few things to talk to the two of them about, but it can't be helped. Besides, I always have our lunch break to talk to them.

For now I just open the folder back up and shuffle farther through the papers. As of right now I'm not looking for more information on the eight described on the news this morning; I want to know the other five victims.

Flipping to the papers I flip to the first name other than those eight: Sakura Kyoko. Fourteen years old, born and raised in Kasamino City, lives here in Mitakihara, second-year here at Mitakihara Lower Secondary.

_They got Kyoko? How did they manage to get her—actually, since when did she live here? In a house, no less? Unless she's living with someone, because there's no way she'd be able to afford living alone...And since when did she attend school here?_

According to the paper, she was the fifth victim. Her blood was found along with victim number four Kure Kirika's on February 11th here at school.

I flip to Kure Kirika's file. Fifteen years old, born and raised here in Mitakihara, a third-year here. Victim number four on the list, blood dated minutes earlier than Kyoko's at the scene of the crime.

Next file: Mikuni Oriko. She's a regal-looking girl with long silver hair and bright blue eyes. She's fifteen years old, born and raised here in Mitakihara, a third-year at Shirome Private School. Victim number three, the crime scene being her own home on the afternoon of February 10th.

_Sheesh. A rich private school girl _and _a former street urchin? He's hitting both ends of the spectrum, isn't he?_

The next victim was the legendary pastry-making magical girl Tomoe Mami. Fifteen years old, born and raised in Mitakihara. She's a third-year here at Mitakihara Lower Secondary school, and the crime scene was her own apartment. The incident was called in on the same day as Oriko's, but the blood was dated to February 7th.

_They managed to nab Mami-senpai too? Just who is this kidnapper?_

Finally I flip to the last file. When I see the familiar face I gasp.

Nine years old. Dark green hair, blue eyes. Born and raised in Kasamino City, a third year at Kasamino Primary School, and the first victim of this serial kidnapper. The scene of the crime was the orphanage where she lived on February 1st. Her name is Chitose Yuma.

She's the youngest magical person I've ever encountered, younger even than my eccentric Preventer colleague Omincharao Obito, who's ten years old. Yuma was present with me during the apocalypse last timeline when Madoka turned into the witch Kriemhild Gretchen. By far the most adorably spirited child I've ever met. Whether or not Hideki managed to retrieve her and send her back like he did me, I don't know.

But to think that whoever it was would assault a child is...sickening. In fact, it makes me angry. _Very angry._

I shut the folder and place it in my bag, then put my head down on my desk as I await Saotome-sensei's arrival to the classroom.

_To think that someone could take out two of the most experienced Puella Magi I know besides my mother, and then a third one...It's insane! But what do those thirteen have in common..._

"Alright, class, take your seats. We have too much to do and not enough time," Saotome-sensei says as she enters the classroom, and everyone immediately obliges her command.

"First; roll call. Aikaba Tomohisa."

"Here," A boy in the back of the class stands up and answers, then sits back down.

"Akatsuki Maria."

_Did we have someone with that name in the last timeline?_

No one stands up, but the only vacant seats are the ones in front of Sayaka, in front of Tomohisa, left of me and in front of—wait, what?

In the seat in front of me Kyousuke is sitting as if he were there the whole time. He turns around and looks at me as if he didn't realize that I was there.

_"Hey there, Kyou. You rest well?" _He asks me with telepathy. Two magical individual can speak through thoughts whenever both parties wish to. However, we cannot speak to any non-magical individual without the aid of an Incubator, the aliens that contracted us. So this confirms that Kyousuke succeeded in going back in time, as there is no Incubator present.

I shrug my shoulders. _"Sure, I guess. When did you get there?"_

_"I came into the room when you were busy poring over those files of yours. You looked a bit like a female detective there, you know?"_

I give him the finger just as she calls his name. When she sees the bird flying through the air at him, she gives me a menacing glare.

Kyousuke grins at me and calls, "Here."

Luckily she lets me off easy with just that glare, and continues on the roll call. "Kaname Madoka."

The pinkette stands up and confirms her presence, then sits down.

Saotome-sensei continues with the roll call. "Keishoutto Kyousuke."

"Here."

"Miki Sayaka."

"Here."

"Nakazawa Hideki."

No answer. The seat beside me remains vacant.

"God. I wonder if he's with Akatsuki-san again," Saotome sensei wonders. For a few seconds the classroom is vacant of all activity, but then Kyousuke stands up.

"If you want, Kyou and I could go get them," Kyousuke offers, to which Saotome-sensei responds to with a nod. "You two do that."

I rise from my seat and Kyousuke turns around and whispers, "Bring that folder with you."

"But—"

"Trust me; she won't say anything," he assures me, then walks to the door. I sigh and retrieve the folder from my back and walk to the door as well. We exit into the hallway and Kyousuke leads me in the direction of the roof's stairwell.

"What is he doing up there?" I ask.

"Because," he says, "we need to talk to you."

I sigh at that. "That doesn't really answer my question. There are any number of ways we can talk besides skipping class."

"That's not going to change the fact that the deed is done," he responds and continues of the stairs. "Just come on."

"Yeah, yeah, okay," I say. After around thirty more seconds of our uphill trek, we break out into open space, where Hideki is chatting leisurely with a girl with red hair tied into pigtails.

"Hey, who's that?" I ask Kyousuke.

"I'll let Hideki explain that to you," he says, and that's when the two of them look up and see us.

The laid-back brown-haired boy waves at us. "Hey there, Kyousuke 1 and 2."

"Yo," I say as I greet him. Kyousuke simply waves.

"So that one's _your_ Kyou, right Hideki," the girl asks as we approach.

"Yep. He's our personal little wild card, him," Nakazawa responds.

_So what, I'm a tool to you? _I wonder as we stop in front of him.

"You're a cute one," she says and steps up to me. She starts caressing my face and hair, which I attempt to pull back from, but she grabs me by my face and pulls me back in.

_Can I at least get an introduction before you start cuddling me?_

As if reading my mind, Hideki says, "The girl molesting your face is my childhood friend Akatsuki Maria. She transferred here two weeks ago from Sarousha City."

"Nice to meet you, Kyou-san," she says while still nuzzling my face.

"Nice to meet you too, Akatsuki-san," I somehow manage to say through my squished cheeks. To be perfectly honest, this girl is scaring me. She's a bit too physical for my taste. To think that this girl is Hideki's childhood friend...does this mean that Hideki had to suffer through this for lord knows how long...I'm surprised he hasn't gone to see a psychologist.

"Oh, and by the way, that's not how she usually acts," Hideki explains as she proceeds to pinch my cheeks and stretch them out. "Normally she's very composed and critical, but once she sees something or someone cute all of that personality is tossed out of the window. Since she seems to have taken a liking to you, I'd avoid being alone in a room with her at all costs. She will eat you alive."

I suppose he knows this from experience, so I make a mental note of that tidbit of information.

"If you let her cling to you any longer, she might lose all self-control and devour you here and now," Kyousuke comments as I see the girl's eyes glaze over.

"Fufu...I'm going to take you home with me..." she mutters as her grip tightens beyond human capacity.

_Someone's been watching too much Higurashi, _I think. Right now she seems like a mix between Takano Miyo and Ryuugu Rena from the anime, positively the two most terrifying characters in it.

I attempt to pull away from the amber-eyed girl, but her grip is to tight for me to pry open, even for the enhanced strength I received as one of the perks of my contract.

It's then that I see the ring on her finger; a Puella Magi's soul gem in its dormant form.

Hideki taps Maria somewhere on her back, and immediately her grip slackens and she falls shuddering into his arms.

"H-H-Hideki...why did you do that," she stammers as she leans on him for support.

"Because we have things to do; that's why," he responds, and helps her to the bench. "Feel free to fool around with Kyou afterwards, though."

"So you're just going to throw me to the wolves like that?" I ask him, and he shrugs his shoulders.

"Hey, it actually isn't that bad—"

"Anyway, let's get down to business," Kyousuke says as he yanks the folder from under my arm. "We all know this kidnapper is freaking crazy by this point, but he set a new personal record for the number of people kidnapped in a day by a single person yesterday. He abducted eight people yesterday from Asunaro, which really isn't that far from here. But yesterday he also threw an anomaly into the batch of victims in terms of sex and age. He kidnapped a twenty-eight year old man named Tachibana Souichirou."

"Is he a Preventer?" Nakazawa asks.

"I don't know; we haven't checked with Hachibey yet."

"Alright, let's just assume that he isn't one for the time being," Maria says, completely recovered from her shaken state mere moments ago. "What about the other seven reported yesterday? Any similarities in those seven?"

He hands the folder to Maria to look over with Hideki. After a minute or two of carful study, Hideki says, "These seven girls are all part of a self-named magical girl troupe called the Pleiades Saints."

"How do you know that?" I ask him, and he grins.

"Magic," he says.

"That does nothing to answer my question."

"It does enough."

"So that makes twelve schoolgirls, out of thirteen victims, and all twelve of them are Puella Magi. Which pretty much confirms that our kidnapper is after magical girls," Kyousuke analyzes, cutting into mine and Hideki's argument.

"If we disregard the male," Maria says.

"Yes, if we disregard Tachibana-san."

"Now we need to figure out—"

_'BOOM!'_

An explosion rumbles in the distance and a plume of smoke billows up in the distance.

"Anyone want to hazard a guess at what that was?" I ask as I walk towards the roof's ledge.

"Obviously an explosion," Maria says as she walks up as well.

A few streets over an apartment complex is in ruins and burning, and I can faintly hear screams over the sirens.

"A terrorist attack?" Hideki suggests.

"No," Kyousuke responds, "Probably not. Last terrorist attack we had happened before we were born."

"Shall we check it out?" I suggest to the others.

Hideki shrugs. "Let's just leave it to the authorities. Chances are it's something we don't have to get involved in."

"But what if it's the kidnapper?" Kyousuke speculates. Hideki and Maria share a look as if second-guessing themselves, and then Hideki sighs.

"Fine. We'll go," he points at Kyousuke and me, "you two stay here."

"Why are just you two going? There's strength in numbers, right?" Kyousuke asks.

"Calm down, rookies. Maria and I have years of experience; you two don't even have a full month's worth," Hideki explains, "And besides; if something comes to attack the school, who'll be there to protect everyone else? The four of us are the only magical individuals left in the city, besides Kyou's mom and Obito."

We're silent as Kyousuke and I attempt to come up with a viable rebuttal, but come up with nothing. "Fine," I say.

"If you two aren't back in the hour, I'm coming after—," Kyousuke starts, but is interrupted by Hideki.

"No you're not. You'll stay here with Kyou, okay? You won't come after us no matter what. Promise?"

"But—"

"No buts. Just promise me."

He sighs in defeat. "I promise."

Hideki turns to me. "You, too."

"I promise."

He claps his hands. "Good. Let's go, Maria," he says, and they both step off of the roof.

* * *

**A/N: Here we are, a nice little chapter semi-explaining Kyou's situation as well as analyzing the kidnapper's motives. I've effectively shoved Madoka Magica, Oriko Magica, and Kazumi Magica into one nice little package. Which means the cast is enormous, but I think it'll be fine. I also managed to weave Higurashi: No Naku Koro Ni and Umineko: No Naku Koro Ni into the story. Don't know if it can get any darker than that. Higurashi/Umineko references (by far two of the darkest animes of all time) mixed into a PMMM fic (PMMM is the third darkest anime I've watched) with a possible pedophile hunting Puella Magi.**

**Constructive criticism is always welcome, so R&amp;R, and stuff like that; you know the drill. **

**See y'all next chapter; Dragonmaster, out.**


	4. Chapter 3: Detective Work I

**A/N: It's been like, two or three months since I last posted a chapter. Of course, I have a good reason for not doing it (my lack of internet for most of that time period, general computer problems, etc.), but I still feel bad about it. So: my apologies, readers. I'll work extra hard on these next chapters, so I hope I can make up for the wait.**

**Oh, and shout out to Qinlongfei for being a consultant of mine in a way. Seriously. Without him, this fic might be a little more...unorganized, to say the least. That being said, he put up a crossover fic of Doraemon and PMMM called The Preventers—Daybreak's Bell. It's an unrelated prequel of sorts to the story (maybe it would be more appropriate to call it a spinoff), even featuring the adults of the anime (as the supporting cast). I'll say right now: there's an interesting premise, genius interactions, and it's very well orchestrated. You guys should give it a read.**

**Chapter 3: Detective Work I**

* * *

[Kyoko's POV]

"Hey," I call out to the kidnapper, who I've so cleverly dubbed 'Doctor Douchebag', because the motherfucker won't give me and the others his damn name.

I look around at the other twelve captives and notice that only three of us are tied up: myself, that Kirika chick, who's sleeping fitfully on the ground beside me, and some girl with poofy pink hair and violet eyes, who's throwing a temper tantrum and crying into some four-eyed white-haired chick's arms.

"Hey," I repeat more forcefully, but Dr. Douchebag doesn't look up from his furious scribbling in his notebook. The wooden table he's sitting at looks brand new, like pretty much everything else in this basement. How do I know it's a basement? Why, it's because the sign by the staircase says two things: that we're currently _in the basement_and that upstairs is the stage. So I'm assuming we're in a theater house or something.

Now there lies the question of _why the hell did he choose a theater house?_ Like, of all the places to take your captives to, a freaking _theater house_?

"Oi, Dr. Douchebag."

Still no answer.

"You know, normal kidnappers would pay close attention to his captives."

He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah? Well I'm not a normal kidnapper." Last night he came back from mopping the floor with the eight captives at Asunaro without his mask. A big surprise, given that I had been in this godforsaken prison for six days and saw nothing but that ugly white mask. Without it, he's quite the looker, and I have strict standards on things like that. He has a generally kind face, with slicked-back grey-brown hair and sharp brown eyes that seemed to pierce through to your very soul.

I gasp in mock surprise. "You don't say, _Dr. Douchebag__._" I stress the moniker to hopefully tweak his nerves.

Looks like I succeeded. He sighs and questions exasperatedly, "Really? You're still calling me by that name?"

"You won't tell me your name! I have no choice but to call you that," I argue.

He gives me a blank stare before writing something down in his notebook. Seconds later, a box of Pocky materializes up in his hand. "I'll give you this whole pack if you be quiet."

I nod, deciding to ignore the fact that it materialized out of thin air. "Deal. But you have to feed it to me."

"Why?"

I attempt to break my hands and legs free of their bonds, but succeed in only wasting energy. "I'm being tied up like this is some S&amp;M _doujinshi_. That's why."

He stares at me some more before lowering his head in defeat and scribbling again in the notebook. Instantly the tightness around my wrists alleviates.

"Eureka!" I yell, practically leaping in joy. He tosses me the box and I snatch it out of the air, almost immediately stuffing one of the sticks in my gaping maw.

"Quiet down," he commands, and points to Kirika, "We really don't need her awake in her current state."

_Hah, you're scared of her!_I accuse in my mind as I smirk at him. "Oh, Kirika~!"

His eyes widen as I begin to close the gap between my face and her ear. "Okay, okay! You win! What is it you want?"

I place a finger on my cheek as I ponder just what it is I want besides to torment my captor.

Then it hits me. Right in the stomach. The growling from my stomach mimicked that of even the most vicious attack dogs the authorities can train.

"Food," I mutter as I clutch my stomach and practically shove the whole pack of Pocky in my mouth to calm the vicious spirits inside of me. "I need a full-course meal. ASAP."

He sighs and shakes head. "I suppose it's about time to start preparing dinner anyway," he complains, and then walks over to a girl with whitish-blonde hair and ashen blue hair leaning back in a chair with her feet propped up on a table fiddling with her phone. "Hey, Nico-chan? Do you mind getting Tachibana-san and Kazumi-chan for me, please?"

She continues to text on her phone, acting as if he isn't even there, but after a few seconds she says, "Done."

Seconds later I hear footsteps, and a slightly familiar teenage girl with short, messy black hair and red eyes comes around the corner with an older-looking man, again very familiar-looking, maybe in his late twenties, with short light-brown hair and the eyes to match. When the girl sees Dr. Douchebag, she ducks behind the man.

"You wanted us, Kanna-san?" He asks Nico, and she points to the kidnapper.

He turns towards the kidnapper and bristles slightly. "Is...there something you want, Arata? If not, Kazumi and I would like to take our leave."

"Nothing in particular," he says, and steals a glance at me.

_What do you want? Get on with it!_

"I was just wondering if you two would fancy cooking today's dinner with me. I'm sure the girls are all getting hungry."

He looks at Dr. Doucheb—, er, _Arata_, with what looks like full intent to hit him, but says, "Fine. How many people do we have to feed?"

"There's fourteen of us," Arata says.

"Alright," the Tachibana dude responds, "Where's the kitchen?"

"Coming right up." He walks to his desk and starts to write in his notebook again.

"C'mon, Dr. Douche, what the hell are you doing? Don't you care that I'm dying?" I yell at him, but he once again ignores me. "Tch. Asshole." I turn to the Tachibana guy and say, "Hey, you got any food..." We lock eyes and I begin to lose my train of thought. "On...you..."

_I know this dude..._

Indeed I do. I met this dude about a year ago at his restaurant when he called me out for trying to leave without paying. I started to try and leave, but the jerkass had to go and offer to let me stay at his place since he saw me out in the streets a lot. Coincidentally, the police were also searching for me at around that time for a number of things. Like vandalism, simple thievery, and a bunch of other shit that I've lost track of. He also hid me from the authorities for a month or so, and when they finally came back to his place he bought me some time to escape.

Hey, would you look at that? That's another person that I'm indebted to.

"Kyoko?"

"Souichirou," I say, trying to feign indifference but beginning to fail in remaining so. Seriously, I never got to thank him for all that he did, because I was sort of rushed when I had to vacate his property. And now that I'm here, I'm having trouble finding the words to say to him. Something that never, _ever_happens to me.

"Tachibana-san, you two know each other?" The girl—Kazumi, if I remembered what Arata called her correctly—asks while pointing to me.

"Yeah. Certain circumstances forced us to live together for a time," he explains, while looking stupefied at me.

"_Forced__? _Dude, you offered to let me stay with you," I correct him, and he runs his hands through his hair.

"I did it on a whim! I couldn't just let you walk off, knowing you were homeless," he counters, and I unconsciously bristle at the last half of his rebuttal.

"Thanks for just announcing that, _Ichi-chan__. _I really appreciate it," I say facetiously as I glare at him. But he, being the person he is, just returns it with one of his own.

"Why are you getting so mad when it's the truth? And don't call me Ichi-chan!"

"Because that's personal information you're just volunteering to others, even if it's just these two here," I point to Nico and Kazumi, "Though I'm pretty sure the whole fucking _building_ heard that, Ichi-chan!"

His eyebrow twitches and he steps towards me. I simply stare at him, inviting him to just _think_of doing something to me, but just as he raises his hand, Kazumi steps in between us facing him.

"Tachibana-san, Kyoko-san, please don't fight," she begs, and then I remember just where I saw this girl before.

"Wait a second..." I growl as I put a hand on her shoulder and whip her around to face me, "You're the girl who broke up the fight between me and the nurse girl way back when, aren't you?"

She takes a step back and cocks her head at me in what looks like confusion.

I narrow my eyes at her. "Huh? You saying you don't remember? Because I definitely remember you. You cost me a grief seed then, you know that?"

She whimpers and begins to return to her cover behind Souichirou, but I refuse to let her get away. She will pay for what she did. With her body, if it comes down to it. I begin to walk towards her, and she moves even farther away from me, to the side opposite side of Souichirou. "C'mon, Kazumi-chan, keep still...I won't hurt you too much..."

She yelps as I make a sudden lunge for her and scampers up Souichirou's back, clinging to him like she's a spider monkey.

"H-hey, Kazumi!" Souichirou complains as he struggles to keep his balance.

_Heheh, you're mine now, little girl!_

I saunter up to Souichirou and flick him in his forehead, and he begins to wobble even more. "You know, Souichirou? You're pretty tall, for a Japanese man. You know what they say about tall people? The taller they are...the harder they fall," I tell him as a smile creeps onto my face. I leap and grab the girl by her arms, brace my feet against his chest, and push as hard as I can, making all three of us fall on our backs, although Souichirou may have had a little hangtime.

I roll backwards and land so that I'm straddling the raven-haired girl and pin down her arms. "Fufu...where should I start collecting my payment, hmm?" I look her up and down, and can determine that there's not one grief seed on this girl, so, as I thought, she must use her body to compensate.

I wouldn't do anything to her upper parts—she's pretty much the same as me in that regard, which means pretty much flat. So that means I'll have to target her lower body.

Kazumi starts flailing in my grasp, but my leverage prevents her from breaking free. "Oh no, you're not getting out of this one, Kazumi," I say as I switch my grip to hold both of her hands with one, and use my free one to begin...roaming, if I want to put it like that.

Her eyes widen at the stimulus and her face flushes, then she starts flailing with renewed strength. "Tachibana-san! Help me!"

I set my hands to autopilot and look up to see if anyone will interfere. Ahead of us, Souichirou is clutching his chest, so I can count him out for now. To our left, over by the far wall I had spent the last few days against, Kirika is finally awake and flailing about in her restraints, while the pink haired girl and the four-eyed white-haired girl are trying to calm her down, which rules out those two out as well. Heck, I doubt they've even noticed what I'm doing yet.

Behind us, Arata is still busy doodling in his damned doodle-book. The damned douche bag...Didn't I already tell him I was dying? Doesn't he care that his hostage is slowly losing all of her precious HP?

_That damn Arata...I'm gonna make him drown in his pen's ink if he doesn't hurry it up!_

I look finally to my right, where that Nico girl is still busily tapping away at her phones keyboard. Kind of makes me wonder if her phone's permanently glued to her hand.

After a few more seconds of scouting the room for any more people, I finally decide to return to the wheel in collecting my payment.

"Huh?" _Soft...warm...round...this is...oh!_"Heheh...looks like my autopilot went in overdrive, huh," I whisper to myself, as I notice my hand inside the girl's shirt. "Time to take back control so I can enjoy this mys—ack!" Suddenly something hits me in the back of the head.

"Tch. Why do you have to be so..._Kyoko_?" Souichirou asks from above me.

"Come, on, Ichi-chan, you know you were lonely without me!" I say as I rub the back of my head. "So what did ya step in for, huh? It was just getting good, ya know. I'm sure ol' Kazumi-chan wouldn't mind if you joined, even!"

"Like hell I'd join! That'd get the police on me faster than I could say 'lovely lolis'! And why, you ask? Because this is one hundred percent screwed up, that's why! What I should be asking you is why _you're_ doing this!"

"Heh. 'Why', you ask. I'm collecting my payment, dammit! This girl broke up a fight between me and some other bitch, and cost me a grief seed!"

"Grief...seed? Isn't that one of those things you said replenished your magic or something?"

Kazumi sits up suddenly and knocks me off of her in the process. "Tachibana-san! You already knew about magical girls?"

"Well sure, a little bit. Like how you guys fight 'witches' and their 'familiars', how you get your powers from an alien space-ferret, and how grief seeds replenish the magic you used up. But from what I can tell, that's just the basics of your system."

I rise from the floor, using the girl's head to brace myself and mush her to the ground. "Hey, don't you go changing the subject, brat," I yell at Kazumi, then look up at Souichirou. "Now if you excuse me, I still have a debt to collect. _Unless,_" I flash a smile at him as I decide to tease him a bit, "you want to take her place!"

He takes a step back with a look of confusion on his face. "Huh?"

I give him a look of false disdain. "Hah, I always knew you were a pedophile, Ichi-chan!"

"No way in hell! She's not getting molested, and I'm not either!" He grabs Kazumi by the wrist and pulls her away. As soon as he releases her, she scampers behind him.

"Huh? Then what do you suggest I do?"

"Give her a break, for Christ's sake. She doesn't even remember that!"

I crack my knuckles. "That's why I'm gonna make her remember!"

"There's no way you could make her remember! She's an amnesiac, dammit!"

My mood immediately returns to that of semi-serious. "Of course, I wasn't planning to actually go any farther than that. I just wanted to mess with you two for a bit."

"That's bullshit, and you know it is. And you changed your tone _way_too quickly!"

"No it's not."_Shit! He figured me out!_

_Wait...why am I so surprised by that?_

"Kyoko."

"What?"

"Apologize. Now."

"Why should I? She started it."

"Kyoko." He begins a staring contest with me.

"What?"

"Do it."

"No."

"Do it."

"Are you deaf?"

"No. Now do it, or else I'm not going to cook you anything."

And with that, he emerges victorious in the staring contest.

_Eh? That ultimatum is unfair! His cooking is so delicious, but I don't want to concede like this...What to do, what to do..._

Oh, fuck it. Missing out on a chance to eat his cooking a sin in my opinion. "My apologies, Kazumi-chan. I went too far in my teasing, so please forgive me."

The apology hangs in the air as the two of them stare blankly at me. "...Did I say something wrong?"

"N-no. It's just that I didn't expect you to apologize so easily," Souichirou explains. "And so formally, too. I never thought I'd hear such a sophisticated tone come from your mouth."

_What the hell is that supposed to mean?_"Whatever, Ichi-chan. So," I step to my right a bit to get a better look at Kazumi, "you gonna forgive me or what?"

"Eh? Y-yeah."

"Good. Now, Ichi-chan, get to cooking. Half of my HP bar has been drained by now because of hunger."

He sighs. "I would, but a certain someone," he begins as he stares at Arata, who's still writing in his notebook, "won't show me where the kitchen is!" He yells the last part in an attempt to catch Arata's attention.

"Come to think of it, he sat straight down after he told us he'd show us the kitchen, didn't he?" Kazumi says.

"He did," I confirm, and turn around to face our kidnapper. "Oi, Dr. Douchebag—" I stop as I begin to correct myself, but I like the nickname I gave him better. "You gonna show us the kitchen or not?"

He holds up a finger, signalling for us to wait.

I bristle at that. Like hell I'm waiting anymore. "Listen here, you son-of-a-bitch: I'm not the most patient of people. You can always come back and doodle in your doodle book; just show us where the damn kitchen is!"

He ignores me and continues to write still.

"Seriously, Arata," Souichirou complains, "this is getting old."

Then something totally screwy happens.

I blink, and I'm not where I was a millisecond ago. We're now in an enormous, fancy-ass kitchen, full of sparkly gold kitchenware, and Arata is now standing wearing a chef's hat and an apron.

"What the actual fuck."

"You wanted a kitchen," Arata says as he places a pan on the stove, "so I gave you one. I hope it was worth the wait."

* * *

[Kyou's POV]

_"This is not a drill. A code delta is now in effect. I repeat: a code delta is now in effect. All students are to remain in their classrooms until further notice,"__ t_he principal booms over the intercom.

Instantly a wave of murmuring passes over us students.

"A code delta?"

"A lock-down?"

"I wonder if the kidnapper just struck again?"

"I really don't want a repeat of last week..."

Students all over the classroom voice their worries to each other, and the negative emotions they convey all begin to flow into me. Worry, confusion, anxiety, and fear. The emphasis lies on the last two. They're anxious to have the reason for the procedure revealed, and scared to hear the answer because of what they think it is: the serial kidnapper's latest crime.

My vision gets a little blurry around the edges and a headache slowly but surely begins to work its way into my cranium.

"I could really do without this side effect," I complain to myself. The power I had acquired from the rogue Incubator Hachibey allowed me to absorb negativity and convert it into physical form. Sadly, I'm still getting the feel for some of the more detailed aspects, such as turning it off when I don't want to use it, leading to my present condition.

"Is your power acting up again," Kyousuke asks.

I sigh as the headache's pain starts to come in waves on a cadence with my heartbeat. "Yeah. I really need to get better control over this thing." _Either that or an Aspirin._

"You got that right." He looks down at his hands and begins to tap his foot on the floor. "Seriously; I'm fed up with just sitting around doing nothing. Why wouldn't Hideki let us come with?"

"I can think of a few reasons why, but the mean thing is I guess the fact that there wouldn't be any point if all of us got captured. That would end up leaving the rest of the general public to fend for themselves."

He looks sidelong at me. "Hey, that still leaves Obito to take care of things."

I shake my head. I don't necessarily doubt the ability of ten-year old street-urchin turned magical boy, but I don't think that anyone can do anything against this threat alone. "That would only leave one person. As impressive as he is, there isn't much he can do on his own."

His brow furrows as he submerges himself in thought. "I guess so...I don't like being holed up in this room, though."

"I think that's just all of the bundled-up energy from being held hostage in that hospital room talking."

He clenches his teeth. "S-shut up! No it's not."

"Yes it is. I can feel it." I hold up my hand to emphasize the point. "Speaking of the hospital, though: when did you get discharged?"

"Three days ago."

_I sense a problem. _"Kyousuke...shouldn't you at least pretend to be going through therapy to get your strength back?"

He laughs nervously and rubs the back of his head. "Yeah, I know, but..."

_'__But', what? _"You know what? Whatever. I don't want to hear whatever it is you're about to say." I rest my chin on my palm and look over the class, just observing all of their pointless dawdling, and the lack of productivity is beginning to aggravate me. "Your restlessness is starting to transfer to me, though. Perhaps we should check on Akatsuki-san and Hideki?"

"Of course." He hooks a thumb at Saotome-sensei. "But how are we going to get out of here without her noticing?"

"I don't know. Maybe I could blind her and the rest of the students until we leave?"

"Sounds like a plan...er, no, it doesn't," Kyousuke corrects himself and rests his hand on his chin.

"What do you mean, 'no it doesn't'?"

"Exactly what I said. Last time you actively used your magic, you passed out. We don't need that right now. Come to think of it, that might actually be the reason Hideki had us stay back."

"What's to say that I can't fend for myself now," I argue.

"I don't know. Why don't you try to use your power," he suggests and leans back in his chair. "If something explodes or you pass out, then that means your power's still acting up."

_If something explodes, huh? Did he just indirectly tell me to die? _"Well, I guess I ought to hold off on testing it. Now I feel like a burden..."

He crosses his arms over his chest and closes his eyes. "Hmm...You kind of are. But don't let it get to you. It happens to everyone at some point."

"Does it?" I stretch over the desk, only terminating our conversation for lack of something else to say.

_Kind of hard to imagine Homura-chan having ever been a burden, even when she first contracted,_ I think as I drum my fingers on the desk. _Maybe I'll ask her about it later__._

Around twenty truly fruitless minutes pass and finally the intercom crackles, marking the end of its short time of inactivity.

_"The code delta protocol has been lifted. I repeat: the code delta protocol has been lifted. Due to security reasons, school will have to be adjourned for the day. All students, it is recommended that you travel home in groups of two or more and that you contact your parents beforehand."_

A wave of murmuring passes over the class as all of the students begin to pack up.

"Sheesh. We didn't even get through homeroom," Kyousuke uncaringly complains as he picks up his bag. "If I would've known this would happen I wouldn't have even showed up today."

I pick up my bag as well and rise from my seat. "Yeah. I probably would've done the same." My eyes drift to Saotome-sensei at the podium, and see she's talking on her phone. Either she's talking to her boyfriend or her parents, and given her romantic track record, I'd say the latter would be the most likely of the two. No matter the timeline, Saotome-sensei remains a pitiable human being.

_I wonder when she's going to get her life in order?_

I retrieve the file folder from inside my desk and place it in my bag, then follow Kyousuke to the door. "Crap. I should really get Hideki and Akatsuki-san's bags, huh?" I say to myself, then walk back to Hideki's desk and pick up his. "Oi, Madoka," I call over to the pink-haired girl on the other side of the classroom.

She stands stock-still, much to Sayaka and Hitomi's surprise, and then she turns slowly and robotically to look at me with a horrified expression on her face.

"Huh," I whisper. "What'd I do?"

I feel a hand on my shoulder. "Oh, yeah, before I forget," Kyousuke says, "Madoka's terrified of you, Hitomi shuns you, and Sayaka wants you dead. In a sort of friendly way."

"In a friendly way, you say? Just what about that is friendly?" I wonder in outrage.

"Well," he explains, "Sayaka wants you dead, but your friend-enemy relationship makes her only want to put half of the effort into killing you. Hitomi, as much as she wants to ignore because you're 'an enemy of all women' as she calls you, she realizes you're a very reliable person more often than not. And Madoka, as much as she's afraid of you for going too far in your erotic jokes, realizes that you're all talk and won't really do anything unless given explicit permission."

I look at him, then to that trio of girls in disbelief. "Dude...just how bad was the me from this timeline?"

"Oh, you were pretty bad, and I only knew that version of you for about a week," he says without hesitation. "You were a total pervert, didn't ever participate in the classes, read porno mags in the open, and often came to school dressed in a girls' uniform just to mess with people. Hitomi was being nice when she said you were the enemy to all women; you were the enemy of all mankind, too."

As he piled on all of my offenses I begin to see my future slowly drift to hell. The amount of work that I'm going to need to do to fix my reputation is going to be massive.

"Anyway, you should probably let me get the bags. If you ask those three, Sayaka will probably bring it to you and stab you as you're walking away."

I gulp and nod. "Y-yeah. You probably should."

Kyousuke walks over to Akatsuki Maria's desk, greets the girls, and then retrieves the bag. "Let's get going, Kyou."

_You don't have to tell me twice. Now it seems pretty toxic to even be in the same room as them... _"Alright."

The two of us walk out and are met immediately with a tired and pained-looking Hideki. Without skipping a beat he grabs his bag out of my hand and beckons to us to follow him.

Curious as to what happened to our friend, we have no choice but to follow. The two of us walk on either side of him and follow him to his destination: the nurse's office.

The _very_ small, short white-haired, golden-eyed twenty-three year-old nurse we call Kaibashi-sensei (or Izuko-chan, for those who enjoy teasing her for her childish appearance _and_ don't mind to be both injured and treated by her) is packing up her things just as we walk in.

"Oh, the Three Stooges have showed up," she says to us, then inspects us. "Surprisingly, you're not the one injured today, Keishoutto-kun. Keep your jokes to yourself and we might just be able to keep it that way."

"Heh, a strangely appealing piece of advice. I think I'll go along with that," I say, and then mentally slap myself. Was I really crazy enough to tease Kaibashi-sensei?

"Alright, Nakazawa-kun. Let's get you patched up," she says and leads him to one of the beds. "Geez, you have dirt all over your uniform and on your face." She reaches into a drawer and pulls out a cloth, then throws it at him. It lands on top of his head.

Kaibashi-sensei looks at her hand, and scrunches up her eyebrows. "Wait, this isn't dirt. It's...soot." She turns to Hideki. "Were you over in that building that blew up down the block?"

Kyousuke and I stare at him, fully expecting him to use his mastery of words to come up with a believable lie. The boy wipes his face with the cloth and says, "Yeah."

My jaw goes slack as he I process what he just said. He just flat out admitted to it, and didn't even make an attempt to cover it up.

But my jaw drops when she says in a monotone, "Mhmm. Sure you were"

_She didn't believe him?_

_"Nope,"_Kyousuke says to me through telepathy.

_"That type of truth is ineffectual against Kaibashi-sensei," _Hideki explains to us with the same means of communication. _"At least, when it comes to me. Since I always come up with fantastical excuses when Kyou gets hurt, rather than tell her that you were trying to get a peek up one of the girls' skirts, she's been conditioned to ignore those and deduce a more believable reason." _He stops cleaning his face for a moment to watch her go try to get some bandages from a cabinet. After a few moments of struggling on her part, he limps his way over to her and gets a roll down for her. _"She probably thinks I was burning something and fell in the ashes."_

Kyousuke nods_. "Sounds reasonable. Though there are a few situations where her thinking like that would be a pain."_

_"I don't know,"_I say, _"I think her tendency to not ask many questions would help in one of those."_

Kyousuke shrugs and pulls out his phone. _"Maybe."_

I look down and see Kaibashi-sensei staring hard at Kyousuke and I. "Are you two telepathic or something?"

I almost choke. "N-no."

"Hmm..." She stares suspiciously at us. "So you're saying your relationship with Kamijou-kun has reached the point where you two can communicate with your eyes?"

"I guess you could call it that..."

"Though the progression isn't what you're most likely thinking," Kyousuke says as he's typing away on his phone's keyboard.

"What," Kaibashi-sensei asks, "so no boys' love?"

"HELL NO!" Kyousuke and I yell simultaneously.

I sigh. "Geez, Kaibashi-sensei. Why do you have to be like this," I complain, and she simply giggles in response. The nurse's mantra is pretty much 'no boys' love, no life'.

We hear a knock on the door. "Kaibashi-sensei, come quick! Fuyumori-kun fell down the stairs and can't get up!"

"Alright, I'll be right there," she says to the messenger boy, then says to Hideki, "I'm not done yet, but if you want you can go on and leave. Just shut the door behind you." She tosses some empty wrappers in the trash can and then grabs a wheelchair out of an adjoining room, and leaves with the boy.

Hideki stands up and stretches. "Alright, now she's gone. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have."

"You didn't even have to tell us that," Kyousuke says. "One: was the kidnapper there?"

He nods. "Yep. He wore a gray tuxedo and had a blank white theater mask on."

"A mask?" Kyousuke wonders.

I run through all the people I know who normally wear masks, and come out with one person. "Maybe...Rin?" My half-brother, Reshigi Rin, is another one of us male contractees, a Preventer with even more freedom than us normal Preventers because he didn't contract with my, Kyousuke, Hideki, and Obito's contractor, the rogue Incubator Hachibey. He possesses widely unknown abilities that involve use of a polymorphic shield and a mask.

Kyousuke shakes his head. "I don't know him too well, but I doubt he would do something like this."

"I guess so...but then again, he only helped us last time for the benefit of him and Emi," I say. I don't mean to suspect my own brother, but we need to consider all options. Even though we can only make assumptions with the limited amount of information we have.

This time Hideki shakes his head. "I don't think it has anything to do with Reshigi-san. The kidnapper had dark gray hair, like mine."

"Maybe he had his hair dyed," Kyousuke suggests.

"And he was at least a head taller than me. I don't think Rin can increase his height with his powers."

And with that, Rin's short time as a suspect came to an end. In a good way.

"Alright, Kyou's brother has left the suspect list. But this conversation isn't about him; it's about the kidnapper," Kyousuke says, "What else could you determine about the kidnapper?"

He clears his throat. "Well," he says and slips his hands in his pockets, "He fought exactly like me, had the same powers as me, and then some. He had way more skill with his ringblade than I do, and had a notebook that he wrote in in every free moment. Whenever he wrote something, something inexplicable by science happened."

_He fights exactly like Hideki? A notebook which grants miracles? Just who is this kidnapper?_

"What kind of things are we talking here?" Kyousuke asks.

"Things like healing wounds, reversing gravity, and spawning tentacle monsters. That type of thing," Hideki responds, and visibly cringes when he said _tentacle monsters. _"Oh, and there were two of them."

"Two of what," I ask, "the kidnapper?"

He nods. "Precisely. There were two of them, and they positively demolished me and Maria."

"No way...Then that means Maria must be..." Kyousuke starts.

"Captured, yes. Which is troubling to me, and not just because Maria got captured," Hideki says, with his expression getting more grim by the second. "The two of them didn't express lethal force. They did everything in their power to try and restrain us." He rubs his wrist and looks down at the ground. "I'll take a venture and assume that Maria and my capture were both part of the kidnapper's agenda, and that building's explosion worked simply as a lure."

"A lure," I echo.

"Yes, a lure. The person we're up against is more dangerous than someone who simply relies on brute force; he has a brain to back it up. We're up against a very competent strategist."

* * *

[Kyou's POV]

"Nii-san," Nanime calls out to me from the school's entrance, "Let's go home together!"

For some reason, my eye twitches. "You say that as if I have a choice," I say. "Besides, why would I let you go home alone after what just happened today?"

"Hmm," she says, "Maybe I'm just not used to you being a caring brother. After all," she turns around and begins walking down the steps, "you kind of were the worst kind of person until this morning."

That statement came like a slap to the face. You'd think my own blood would try to console me just a little bit.

"I'm going to kill my past self," I vow as I follow my sister home.

"Oh, don't do that! We don't know how your time travel works, so if you killed your past self you might not be able to be here now."

_That's right; I forgot to ask Hideki how his method of time travel worked... _"Fine, fine, Nanime. But just know that if I find out that I can kill my past self with no repercussions, I'm going back at the first chance."

"Yeah, yeah, sure you will," she responds dismissively.

We walk in silence, and the distance between us gets steadily larger until she finally notices and slows down to match my pace.

More silence ensues, but then Nanime asks, "Hey, Sherlock, did you ever get those files you wanted?"

"Huh?"

"Those files on the kidnapper's victims. Did you ever get them?"

"Oh. Yeah, I did," I say as I pull the folder from my bag.

"So you did. Better question: what did you think of Kabayashi-san?"

The impression of the bespectacled boy typing obsessively on his computer shows up in my mind. "Well...he was...something."

"Well guess what," Nanime says and turns around to face me, walking backwards, "that 'something' is your partner-in-crime, the second-most perverted student in the school."

_Heh, so that means I really _am_ regarded as the most perverted student in the school._

"Someone kill me now..."

Nanime wags her finger at me. "Be careful what you wish for, Nii-san."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," I say, and pry my mind for another matter I need to attend to. After a few seconds, it finally comes to mind. "Oi, Nanime...what are we going to tell Mom?"

"Tell Mom? About what?"

"You forgot? Seriously?"

"Seriously. What are you talking about?"

I sigh. As smart as she is, she can be really forgetful when it counts. "We need to explain to her the fact that I'm a time traveler."

The color drains from her face. "O-oh...yeah...we do, don't we?"

"Yes, we do. So, what should we do? Mom, as awesome as she is, isn't quite as accepting as you are, and she might kill me if she finds out I sort of replaced her son."

"Oh, so that's what's up," a familiar voice says from behind me.

The color drains from my face. "H-hey, Mom."

"Hello indeed, Kyousuke."

* * *

[Kyoko's POV]

"Whoa whoa whoa," I say, shooting up from the table along with Souichirou and Kazumi as two men burst down the stairs carrying an unconscious girl. _What a way to interrupt our feast, newcomers, _I think as I grit my teeth in irritation. _And just as we started eating, too... _"What the hell's going on here, Arata?"

He ignores me. "Hmm," he says as he looks at the group of newcomers. "That's strange. She wasn't meant to be caught this early; it was supposed to be Nakazawa-san...oh well. I suppose it makes things easier to have her out of the way." He pulls out his notebook and scribbles for a moment, and a small bed materializes in the corner of the room. "Just set her down there."

The two men, both clad in Arata's usual gray tuxedo and featureless white mask, nod and set the girl down on the bed, then the two men start to...break apart. Dissolve would actually be a more accurate, because it looks like they break down into little bits of dust and then float over to Arata's book and disappear inside.

_Just what is this dude's power?_

Dr. Douchebag turns to face us. "Well, I'd say it's nigh time to explain some things to you," he says, and then writes something else and a projector screen slides down behind him.

"You're damn right, Arata," I say, and then take a bite of my steak, which _I _happened to cook. When Arata made the kitchen through his crazy voodoo methods, we split up the cooking. I handled the meat, Arata and Kazumi handled the sides, and Souichirou handled the dessert: his famous _Lots o' Parfait_. And the bowls he put the parfait in is like, twice the size of Mami's tits! Humongous, I tell you, _humongous!_

"Uh, Sakura-san? You're drooling," Kazumi points out. I immediately wipe the saliva from around my mouth and continue to eat, awaiting Dr. Douchebag's explanation.

"And you need to explain to _everyone_, not just us three," Souichirou adds, from the kitchen.

"I-I agree with those two," Kazumi piggybacks timidly.

"I get it, I get it. Calm down." He turns to Kazumi. "Could you call everyone else in here, Kazumi-san?"

She looks surprised that she was called on. "M-me?"

"Why yes, Kazumi-san," Arata affirms. "Kyoko is too stubborn and won't cooperate with me, and Souichirou still has to dish out his parfait dessert."

"Simply put," I say through a mouthful of mashed potatoes, "he's taking advantage of your kindness."

Arata nods. "Precisely."

"But do it anyway," Souichirou says as he walks back in with four bowls of parfait on a tray. "You're finished eating, right?"

She nods.

"Then could you please," he politely asks in what I can tell is his waiter mode as the sets down the tray and takes up her plate. "Think of it as a request from me, rather than a command from him."

Her eyes light up, and she says, "Okay, Tachibana-san," with more enthusiasm than should be humanly possible, then leaves the room practically skipping to carry out the order.

_He's manipulating her just as much as Dr. Douchebag is._ I think as I quietly chew my food and observe the two older men. Souichirou returns to the kitchen with every plate including my now-empty one, and Arata scribbles something else in his notebook and a computer and projector materialize on the table.

_And now it's like I'm not even here, _I think to myself. _How can they ignore a cute dame such as myself, _I wonder almost jokingly.

However, my mind responds in a not-so-joking way. _Maybe because you're actually a selfish prick who thinks too highly of herself, and want no parts of you._

I grit my teeth at the scathing response I just received from myself. I'm starting to see why Sayaka wants to hit me so badly; looks like I can be a real asshole.

I reach for one of the Mami's-tits-sized bowls of parfait and pull one of the golden spoons from the tray. Time to deal with my frustration in the best way I know how: eating. And I should point out that while food in general calms me down, somehow Souichirou's cooking works like a narcotic or a stimulant, depending on my mood, and it's more potent than any drug. But he won't ever tell me his recipe for any of his dishes. Even when he was cooking in Arata's 'Gilded Kitchen' with Kazumi, Arata, and I, he was extra secretive in the ingredients he put in the _Lots o' Parfait_. You'd think it would be obvious from a taste what the ingredients are, but Souichirou has a secret ingredient that not even the best food fanatic can decipher.

I make a vow to find out what this secret ingredient is before I die, and take a bite of the parfait.

_Pineapples, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, mango...dragonfruit? Vanilla yogurt, the granola that I asked him to put on the top...but there's still one more thing I can't quite place..._

I spend a good three or so minutes trying to find out what that damned secret ingredient is, but every time I feel like I'm getting close to it it slips out of my grasp.

"GODDAMMIT!" I yell, then wolf down the parfait to calm my aggravated nerves.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I whip around to see who it is. When I see Souichirou's beaming face (which is your small, barely noticeable smile you would rarely see from kuudere girls), I flick him off and return to eating the parfait.

He chuckles. "So? What do you think? I changed up the recipe a bit since you last had some; could you tell?"

"Of course I could tell. With or without the dragonfruit, It's still fucking awesome," I admit grumpily. The fucker just had to make me say it, didn't he?

I put the spoon down, then get up and stretch. "So, since I praised your fabulous cooking, will you tell me the secret ingredient?"

He keeps up with his Kuudere-type grinning and says, "You're still going on about that? It won't be a secret if I just told it to everyone, now would it?"

Fine, then. Since he won't tell me if I just ask, I'll have to resort to trickery.

He begins walking to the kitchen, so I tail him and grab on to the back of his shirt. "Ichi-chan, please?"

"No." He puts the bowl on the counter by the sink and starts to take off the apron.

I wrap my arms around his right arm and declare war on him and his personal space. "_Please?_"

He looks down at me with a more smug expression. "You _are_ aware that you have to have boobs for that move to work, right?"

I grit my teeth to keep from punching him in his face. If I do, my fist might blow right through his head, and I don't feel like hiding a body.

He takes one look at my face and shudders. "O-of course I didn't mean to offend you! I mean, there's plenty good about you even if you are fl—whoa, what am I saying? I meant...uh..." He trails off, probably realizing that he's only making me want to kill him more the more he runs his mouth.

I elect to ignore that he almost called me flat-chested and take him up on the implied portion of his advice: use what I _do_ have to convince him to tell me. Hopefully I didn't misunderstand his meaning.

"Well, as you might have noticed: I'm pretty good with my mouth. And because I really, really want to know what the secret ingredient is, I'll propose a one-time offer. I'll..." I trail off as I realize what I just almost offered to this man. He may have helped me out, but I'm definitely not about that life. "On second thought, no. Just tell me what the secret ingredient is, or I'll tell all of the girls here that you're a lolicon."

He looks at me with a mixture of relief and anger. "Don't scare me like that, dammit! I thought I was going to become a criminal tonight!"

I look at him with disdain. "You're the worst. I always suspected that you were a lolicon, but this just proved it."

"W-what? I'm not a lolicon, dammit!"

"Secret compartment."

The color drains from his face. "Huh?"

"There's a secret compartment on the wall behind your headboard. It's where you keep all of your porn-related things."

By this point his jaw has pretty much dropped to the floor. "S-so what," he argues as he attempts to regain his composure.

"75 percent of it is loli-type eroge and hentai. Where's your comeback for that one, Ichi-chan?"

"I-I'm holding on to it for a friend," he so obviously lies.

"Oh, then the 'property of Tachibana Souichirou' sign is talking about a different person, then?"

If he could get any whiter, he just did. "Alright, so they were mine. But I haven't even looked at them since high school; I just haven't had the chance to throw them out yet."

I hold up my hand to stop him. "I don't care about the excuses, you know. That doesn't change the fact that you're a lolicon."

"Sh-shut up! I just said I didn't get a chance to through them out, didn't I," he argues, clearly irritated and flustered. "And besides, I don't believe you're in any position to talk!"

"Oh really? Why do you think that?" _Yes, Ichi-chan, just what do you have to say about me, huh?_

He clears his throat and says in an almost perfect imitation of my voice, "'W-wait, Ichi-chan...th-this isn't right...'"

It's my turn for the color to drain from my face. "H-huh?"

"'Haa...wait...d-don't touch me th-there...I'm not mentally prepared for t-this type of thing...'"

"E-eh!? What nonsense are you spouting, you lolicon?" _Shit! I wasn't expecting him resort to desperate measures..._

"Oh, come on, I know you remember. I happened to come home early from the restaurant one day, and I saw you in _my_ room, on _my_ bed, doing things I never quite expected a proud girl such as yourself to do," he responds smugly, with a small smirk on his face to match.

I reach up and grab him by his collar, then yank him down to my level. "Looks like I'm going to have to make you forget that, won't I?"

He gulps, but stares at me with a combativeness more intense than what I'm used to seeing from him.

"You two get along pretty well, don't you," a voice says from behind us.

The both of us turn around to find the group of all the other victims standing in front of the kitchen's entrance, all looking at us with some level of amusement. Well, minus Nico, who's of course on her phone.

I release Souichirou and say, "Just how long have you all been standing there?"

"The whole time," someone says as they work their way to the front. When I see just who it is, I almost die of embarrassment. For one, that whole embarrassing scenario all that time ago was revealed practically to the public, and because the last person I wanted to hear about it just found out about it.

The legendary pastry-making, drill-tailed, cow-titted magical girl Tomoe Mami.

"H-hey there, Mami..."

"Long time no see, Sakura-san," she replies kindly.

"C-could you do me a favor and forget everything you just saw," I ask, almost in a begging way.

She smiles and shakes her head. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Sakura-san."

We all stand there, suffocated by the awkward silence from the abrupt ending my argument and their entertainment, before Kirika says from the doorway, "Hey, guys! Arata said he's ready!"

"Alright, time for exposition!" An orange-haired, orange-eyed girl shouts from the middle of the crowd and pumps her fist in the air.

A girl beside her with short blue hair and the eyes to match sighs and says, "Come on, Kaoru, can't you be a little more serious about this?"

"Heheh, sorry about that," she responds without an ounce of sincerity, then follows Kirika back into the dining room, along with everyone else.

"So...shall we go," Souichirou asks.

"...Fine," I agree, and begin to follow everyone else, but something that I suppose I should really address comes to mind. "Oh, and what happened in here should stay in here. Like, we should blow off or deny any mention of what happened in here."

He nods. "Agreed."

The two of walk in to the dining room, where Arata has changed the small round table into a banquet table to seat all of us. Souichirou sits down between Kazumi and Nico, and I sit across from him in the incredibly awkward seat between Mami and Kirika.

Arata claps his hands. "Alright, since we are all accounted for, let us begin. For starters, I do not plan on hurting you in the least. Rather, I gathered you all here because I need your help in something. But that is something I will go into further detail in once I have gathered the others."

"Whaddya need out help for," I ask. "I mean, you took down the fourteen of us on your own, right?"

He holds up his hand. "Please, save your questions for the end."

"...Fine."

"Well, anyway, there's still a few more people I need to gather in order for this to work. You could say I put cart before the horse by gathering up the 'solution' group before I collected 'problem' ones."

"Does that mean all of us are the 'solutions' to whatever your problem is," the little girl, Chitose Yuma asks from the end of the table farthest from Arata.

"No. Sakura-san and Tomoe-san are also part of the 'problem' group, but the rest of you are the solutions." He writes something else in his notebook and a list appears on the screen with three columns: 'Solution', 'Problem', and 'Other'.

Everyone in this room besides Mami, Souichirou, that girl in the corner...Akatsuki Maria, I think it was, Arata I are in the 'Solution' column: Umika, Kaoru, Kazumi, Saki, Mirai, Satomi, Nico, Oriko, Yuma, and Kirika. In the 'Problem' column are Mami and I, whose names are bolded, and in normal font are Kamijou, Sayaka, Obito, Nakazawa, Madoka, Homura, and Kyou. Finally, in the 'Other' column: Arata, Souichirou, and Maria's name are all in bold, while Rin and Emi's names are in normal text.

"Hey, Arata-san, what's the difference between the bolded names and the regular ones," Yuma asks.

"The regular ones are the ones I've yet to collect," he explains, then closes his notebook. "By the way, they're in chronological order by who's supposed to be taken next, in case you were wondering."

There's a silence as everyone continues digesting the list.

_Well...shit. Kamijou and Sayaka come one after the other, huh? I mean, hot damn. The break is actually a little refreshing...if the list is in chronological order, when will the next person show up?_

"That being said: I'm not bringing any others here for a while. You Pleiades really did a number on me, you know," Arata admits. "I had to use almost all of my magic just to deal with Kazumi-san, Umika-san, and Kaoru-san, not to mention I barely got a break before I had to take on Nico-chan and company." He picks up a bottle of a thick red liquid from beside his chair and sips it. "Oh, and Souichirou-san here tried to strangle me with his ladle a few times, too. A fearsome group indeed, I must say."

"That's what you get for fighting us, anyway," the pink-haired girl says proudly.

He takes another sip of his drink and says, "I suppose I did get what was coming to me. So I'm going to continue with the kidnapping in early March, so prepare yourselves for some particularly abrasive newcomers."

"Are you talking about Sayaka," I ask.

"Not exclusively, no." He sets his bottle on the table and walks to the bed where Maria is laying. "Oh, I'm done for now. I was going to entertain your questions, but I don't feel like it anymore, so you'll have to wait for later."

There are groans of complaints around the room. It was implied for some of us, but for me and a few others, it was plenty audible.

"Tch. This dude is the worst kind of tease."

* * *

[Kyou's POV]

"Huh? You're not going to murder me," I ask, incredulous that my mother isn't killing me.

"Nah. It's too much work," she responds and lays back on the couch. "Besides, this version of you isn't quite so bad. Foreign, maybe, but not bad."

"Ha..." _Looks like I avoided my own dead end._

"Anyway," she says, getting up from the couch and walking to the kitchen, "I'm going to start on dinner. You two go bathe or something."

"Okay!" Nanime agrees with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm. Maybe she took the 'together' part of that sentence literally.

I walk to my room and get out a shirt, boxers, and some sweats, then head to the bathroom to get showered, but who do I find in there (and half-dressed, no less) but my dear little sister.

We stare at each other in silence before she breaks the ice. "Hey there, Nii-san. Coming to peek at my naked body again?"

"100-percent no," I retort without skipping a beat. "Wait, 'again'?"

"Yep," she says as she continues to undress. I decide to promptly look away. "You used to do it all the time, you know. Sometimes, though, you did a little more than 'peek'."

"...O' God, why did you create a wicked human being such as me? Do me a favor and undo what you have created, will you," I say in despair. This world's me was truly the worst type of person...

"Ah, Nii-san, you can't just ask something like that so jokingly," she explains in outrage. "It's blasphemous!"

'Well, given certain circumstances over the last month or so, I don't think I have a reason to believe in a God anymore. At least, not until I see one...'

...Is what I'd like to say, but I decide its not worth the massive argument that it would cause and turn around to leave the room. "Let me know when you're done, 'kay?"

"Nii-san, wait," she requests, and grabs on to my arm. "Let's bathe together today!"

"No way." I reach to grab the door handle, but her hand flies out to stop me.

"Come on, please? We used to do it just last week, you know."

"W-we did?" _Really, what the hell was wrong with this timeline's me?_

"Yep. So come on; there's no harm, right? Just think of it as a bit of sibling bonding through skinship."

I sigh. "Whatever. So long as you promise not to do any funny business."

"Okay," she says, the joy blatantly obvious in her voice.

As she resumed undressing herself in front of me, I had unknowingly made my home life a very, very complicated one indeed.

One such example of the accidental changes I made would be when I found her lying beside me in my bed the next morning.


	5. Chapter 4: Detective Work II

**Chapter 4: Detective Work II  
**

* * *

[Kyou's POV]

"...Nii...san," Nanime mumbles in her sleep. For whatever strange reason she's in my bed dressed in her nightgown, which is more or less transparent, and clinging to my arm like a lifeline keeping her from drifting off forever into the twilight of sleep.

_I'll admit, my sister's pretty cute in her sleep, but that's not my issue here. Just why is she in my bed?_

I poke her in her cheek. "Oi, Nanime. Wake up," I whisper.

She doesn't stir.

I press my finger against her cheek this time and continue to increase the strength.

She stirs, but in a way I don't expect.

"Uhn...Nii-san..." She reaches feebly up to my hand and grips it, and then directs her mouth to my finger.

I stare blankly at my sister. _Just what is she dreaming about?_

Then she begins moving her head back and forth and swirling her tongue around in her mouth, and I realize just what she's dreaming about. It kind of makes me wonder who was the worst of the two of us before I showed up.

What's more is the terrifying fact that she's doing this _in her sleep_, while saying _my name_. And, not that I have any experience, but I'd say she's pretty good at it, too.

This situation piques my interest. What, has she been practicing so much that she does it unconsciously or something?

Actually, a better question: just _what _is she practicing on? Or rather, why is she even practicing in the first place?

_Then again...I suppose it's not a completely bad thing..._

_Wait, what did I just think?_

I hear a soft patting sound by the door, so I allow my eyes to wander in that direction, and into my line of sight comes my bemused mother.

"Oh...hi, Mom."

"Good morning, Kyou," she says without any kind of emotions, despite looking at this very awkward situation. "You know, I sort of thought you were different, after finding out that you were from another timeline, but it turns out that you're still the perverted horn-dog of a son you were before, huh?"

For some reason, that made me laugh. And at the same time, I found myself wanting to piss my pants for laughing at my mother. "C-come on, Mom. You're misunderstanding things here. She's doing this subconsciously, you know. I'm just...er...I'm just trying to figure things out myself. Stuff like what kind of relationship me and Nanime had, since this seems to be far more than just sibling admiration."

"You're right; it is more. You ever watch _KissxSis_?"

"No, but I did read some of it. Up to like, chapter fifty-something."

"Ah, that's even better. Now, imagine you're Keita, and Nanime is the personification of the lust all of the heroines have towards him. You're relationship with her is pretty much the same as theirs in the later chapters."

I cringe at the analogy. "That bad, huh?"

"Yeah. I'm surprised you're not a shriveled husk by now," she says tiredly, then turns around into the hallway. "Hurry and get up; you still have school today, you know."

"Okay," I start, but think of something else to ask her before she leaves. "Hey, Mom! One last question."

"Shoot," she says from somewhere down the hallway.

"Do we still have our virginity?"

"Dunno," she answers without skipping a beat. "I make it a point not to get involved in you two's incestuous shenanigans."

I hear her footsteps get farther and farther, almost perfectly representing the hope I have in restoring order to my hectic life.

"Right..." My family really needs some religion. Or a reality check, one of the two. Nanime should realize that whatever relationship we had isn't okay, and Mom should realize it's her duty to get involved in our incestuous shenanigans. As in _make it stop_.

Regrettable as it is, I start to pull away, but she starts sucking harder in response.

"H-hey, Nanime...not so rough..."

She continues to suck, but not like she has been when she was asleep. Now she's more...diligent, I guess. You could say she was simply caressing at first, but now she's going for a deep-tissue massage.

_Wait a second..._

"Hey, Nanime. You still a virgin?"

She falters in her technique just a bit. It was a minor discrepancy, but enough for me to get the information I wanted. "So you're awake, huh?"

Sensing that the jig is up, Nanime opens her eyes and begins to blink away her grogginess.

"Oh, good morning, Nii-san," she says cheerily, propping herself up on her elbow and fixing her shirt.

I stare at her in disbelief. "You're _really_ going to pretend that didn't just happen?"

"Huh? Whatever may you be referring to, Onii-sama?"

_Sama? Really? Is she broken,_ I think, and then sigh."Forget it. So are you going to answer my question or not?"

Her left eye twitches. "W-which question might you be asking about?"

"Are you a virgin?"

"Y-yeah," she answers, her face becoming a very bright shade of red.

"So you wouldn't mind if I checked, right," I ask in a deadpan.

She seems taken aback by the question, and is staring at me in befuddlement.

"What's wrong with you?"

"N-nothing. It's just that...how are you able to ask that question in such a non-perverted manner?"

"Dunno. I'd say that it was a result of practice, but that makes you wonder how often I have to ask that. So...anyway, you wouldn't mind, right?"

She shakes her head. "Of course not! You can even check right now, if you'd like!" She grips the hem of her nightgown and starts to pull it up, but I push her off of my bed before I can see anything.

"Maybe later. Actually, 'never' is probably a more accurate word."

She visibly pouts. "Aw, are you sure about that?"

I hold out my hands. "One-hundred-and-ten percent sure, with a ten percent margin for error."

"Hmm...Shame. Oh well. Time to get ready for school, I suppose." She gets up out of my bed and exits my room.

I let loose a breath I didn't realize I was holding. "Sheesh. So that's it, huh? I find myself strangely expecting more from her."

* * *

I walk through the school's main entrance ahead of Nanime and am met with a certain bespectacled pervert, and the president of the Computer Club.

"Good morning, Erosuke-sama," Katsuo says, and pushes up his glasses. Strange, I didn't think him the type to even leave the Computer Club room, but here he is, out in the realm of the light creatures. I had thought he would burn up if he ever stepped foot outside.

"Morning, Kats—wait, _Erosuke_? _Sama_? What the hell, man?"

"Hmm? What's the issue? You were the one who told me to call you that, after all," he says matter-of-factly.

Past me: 1. Present me: 0.

I facepalm and continue walking forward. "Geez. Well, starting now, Katsuo, you are to address me as anything other than that."

He looks at me in confusion. "I don't get it. Why would you, the epitome of human lust and a proud pervert, be bothered by being called as such? You told me this as well."

"I did, huh?" _Seriously, what was wrong with me? _"Well...continue, I guess. I suppose if it's only you calling me that then it doesn't really matter."

He raises an eyebrow at me. "I thought you were a bit weird yesterday when you came to the Computer Club room, but jeez. Did you do a memory rewrite overnight or something?"

"What?"

"What I'm trying to say is that everyone already calls you that when they're fed up with your antics. What's more is you encourage people to call you that. So, have you finally lost your mind or what?" He asks as he slings his bag over his shoulder.

_E-everyone? _"I wouldn't quite call it that..."

"So anyway," he says and beckons to me, "come with me to the Computer Club room. We have matters to discuss."

It's my turn to cock an eyebrow at him. "Such as?"

He returns the gesture. "Have you forgotten that, too?" When I neglect to respond, he says, "We have police business again. We meet up with Dad a few days after the latest kidnapping to provide him with new information. Surely you haven't forgotten the real reason I have you pore over those files?"

_Really? So I'm not complete trash? _"No, I haven't forgotten. Let's get going then."

So, it seems that, from what I just heard, Katsuo's dad is a detective or in some way involved with the police force, and we're pretty much their colleagues in deciphering this case. But why would they come to us, two middle school students who have no experience in the field?

I follow the taller boy up the steps to the second floor, where the Computer Club room is located, and we finally reach the door. "Oh, and before we go in," he says, and stops in front of the door with his hand on the handle, "I know how you like to give us information we already know, but we already know everything there is to know on the science side."

"'Science' side?"

"You know, the non-magic side? We just need to know the situation on the magic side of things," he says.

_Just how does he know about magic? He's really not a Preventer, is he? _"Huh. O...kay..." He opens the door and inside the dark room, typing away in a similar fashion to when I first met Katsuo in this timeline, is what I would say is his twin, if I didn't know his father was present.

He doesn't look up from the computer but says, "Ah, Kyou-kun. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"It was just last week, Dad," Katsuo points out, and sits down in a chair in front of the desk his father is at.

He laughs heartily, in a deep voice that doesn't quite fit his thin body. "Oh, that short, huh? Oh well. Shame we always meet on these terms, Kyou-kun. But duty calls, unfortunately. Sometimes being the chief of police is a pain."

"Y-yeah," I respond. A few sentences in and I can already tell his dad's pretty aloof. Just how is he able to keep his job as police chief?

"Have a seat," he request, gesturing to one of the chairs at the other desktops. "I can't be here for long, so we need to get straight to business."

I oblige, pulling a chair up beside Katsuo.

"Alrighty then," he starts, and claps his hands. "So we did a little bit of investigating in collaboration with the Asunaro Police Department, and we found out that those girls have heavy interactions with each other. Maki Kaoru, Kazusa Michiru, and Misaki Umika all live together and attend the same school, which is on the other side of town from Kanna Hijiri, Asami Saki, Usagi Satomi, and Wakaba Mirai's school and households."

Katsuo continues where he left off. "Basically, there's no reason for the seven of them to have been interacting like they are, but they met up almost every night, and many have claimed to see them around in the streets in the deep of night."

"Oh, and Tachibana Souichirou was stated to have heavy periodical and I daresay intimate interactions with Kazusa Michiru. Not the inappropriate kind of intimate though," his father adds.

"So," Katsuo continues, "what information do you have for us?"

I pull out the file folder folder and flip through his contents, trying to remember what we deduced the previous day. "Erm...well, we can all agree that the odd one out is the only male in the victims so far: Tachibana Souichirou. He's also the black sheep when it comes to age, which is almost double that of the oldest victim, Tomoe Mami. I'm still waiting to find out if he's in any way related to magic."

His father resumes his fervent typing and Katsuo asks, "What about the girls captured on Monday? You have anything on them?"

"Ah..." _C'mon, what was it we said about them...Oh! _"The seven of them are part of a magical girl group called the Pleiades Saints."

"Strange. So everyone captured has been a magical girl, huh? Barring Tachibana-san, of course," his father says, finally slamming his finger down on a key and looking up.

"Yeah," I confirm, then begin to wonder, "You guys know about Akatsuki Maria, right?"

"Akatsuki-san? The girl that transferred to your class a month or so ago, right?"

I nod. "That's the one."

"What about her?"

"...You guys don't know?"

"Know what?" His father asks.

"She was captured yesterday."

If the two of them could get any more serious, they just did. "How do you know that," Katsuo asks.

"Her and Hideki fought a masked magical boy yesterday. Or rather, two of them, and they captured Maria."

"Really...hmm...I'll need to speak with that boy...Nakazawa Hideki, I presume?" His father inquires, and types something else on the computer.

"Yeah, that's him."

"Kyou...there's something off here. Can we really be sure that this is the same kidnapper?"

I raise an eyebrow at him, curious as to what he's getting at. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. The one that kidnapped Maria didn't leave that horrifying bloodied scene at the area of the crime, because someone would have called it in by this point if he had. It may be possible that we have someone following in the first one's footsteps."

"I apologize for this," Katsuo's dad says, following after his son's theory without skipping a beat, "but we might have to interrogate your friend Nakazawa-san. Not only as the first witness to one of these kidnappings, but also as a suspect. Just for sake of considering all possibilities."

"What? You're seriously suspecting him," I wonder in outrage, shooting up from my seat.

"To be blunt, yes. But only because we don't want to have to continue searching elsewhere only to find the culprit elsewhere," his father states without much consideration. He continues his typing, but only with his left hand this time, but somehow he seems to be typing with that single hand at the same speed that he types with both. "But, if you're that against it, run it by him. See what he thinks. Even if he says no to that, we still have to speak to him because of his status as a witness. Besides," he starts and stares at me with his bespectacled blue eyes, reflecting an enormous wall of text, "if you really have faith in him, you won't be bothered by him being interrogated."

I look away and sit down, ending up meeting Katsuo's eyes. Even though I don't know him very well, I somehow know what he wants to say through his similar bespectacled eyes, _'Ph.D in Rhetoric and Composition &amp; Criminal Justice: 1. Middle school education: 0.'_

_Hmph. Go figure._

"I don't even believe he would do something like that. Cunning and conniving as that boy is, he doesn't seem like he would do something so vulgar," his father adds.

"...Fine. Anything else?"

"No, I believe that's it. Unless, of course, you have something else to contribute. But if you do, could you please wait until after school? Class is going to start in a bit," his father requests.

Hearing such a sincere request and adding that on to the fact that I don't have anything else to say at the moment, I heed it and turn towards the door. "Yeah. I'll let you know if I have something else to tell you. Excuse me." I put the chair back and head to the door, but then think of something I'd been wondering since yesterday. "Hey, Katsuo? Do you ever go to class?"

The father-son pair stare at me in confusion, then laugh their asses off.

_What's so funny?_

"Seriously, Kyou. Are you an amnesiac or something?" Katsuo asks.

"Katsuo graduated _ages _ago. He has an IQ of around 190. He just hangs around here because he doesn't like the atmosphere of the police station or our house, so he just wastes time in here. The school lets him stay around here, but only if he acts as the president of the computer club and the main technological maintenance employee."

"Oh...well, see you la—"

"Oh, Kyou-san. Your power still isn't working, is it?" His father asks.

Slowly, I shake my head.

"Do you still have that pistol I gave you?" He presses

"Huh? Um..." Even though this me didn't receive a gun, the indigenous me must have, and for some reason I find myself wanting to check my bag. I unzip it and reach into my bag, and my hand closes around a cold, metal handle to what I guess is the gun he was talking about. I pull it out and see it to be a handgun, one that I recognize to be Homura's signature firearm.

_Speaking of her; when did she show up in the last timeline again? Maybe I'll ask Hideki about it later._

"You remember how it works, right?"

I know generally how most guns work, so I say, "Yeah."

"Alright then. I have a few things to give you before you leave." His father pulls out two rectangular objects. "Here you are: your badge and a box of ammunition. The badge shows that you are in collusion with us police and have the right to carry this firearm. Please, accept it." He holds out the two objects, and I go retrieve them and put them in my bag along with the file folder.

"Is this really okay? Letting a kid like me handle a gun, I mean."

"No, not normally. But since your power's misbehaving and you're fighting things more dangerous than what we normally fight, you're permitted to use one, courtesy of my influence. Don't question it too much," He says and waves off my skepticism.

"...Thanks. Well...see you two later," I say and leave the room, walking the thirty or so steps to my classroom. On the way, however, I meet Hideki walking from the classroom with his bag. "Yo, Hideki."

"Morning, Kyou-san," he returns the greeting and waves.

"Where're you going?"

He holds up his phone. "I just got a text from Kobayashi-san. Said something about needing to go to the computer club room to talk about what happened yesterday. Something about Maria, I'm guessing?"

I nod. "Something like that. See ya."

"See ya."

We continue on our separate ways and I make my way into the bustling classroom. Seeing as Hideki just left for his interrogation, the only person I can really talk to is Kyousuke.

Actually, after looking around for a bit, I can scratch him off of the list, because he's chatting happily with Sayaka over on her side of the room, which is enemy territory thanks to the me of this timeline's actions.

Sighing, I walk to my seat and rest my head on my chin, waiting semi-patiently for class to start and put me to sleep. I take this time to try to compile a list of the questions floating around my head. Actually, they're racing around my head like NASCAR racers.

I pull out a sheet of paper and a pen and begin to pen down the queries. Things like: _'How does Hideki's time travel work', 'why won't my magic work', 'what the hell's wrong with my sister', _and the most recent inquiry, _'when did Homura show up in the last timeline?'_

Of course, that's not all of the questions, it's just that some of them I can't quite put in the right words. I'm sure Hideki would be able to put them in words perfectly if I ran it by him.

The bell rings, and everyone somehow manages to make it to their seats before Saotome-sensei enters the room.

"Alright class: I have an announcement before we start. I understand that you basically heard this yesterday, but I was instructed to say it again. So: we need to establish a sort of buddy system. It is ill-advised for any of you to go anywhere alone. Also, make sure you have a form of communication on your person, and make sure to let your parents know where your going to be at all times..."

She's right, we heard all of this yesterday, and I'm pretty sure she says a little more after this, but I zone out and realize I might be put to sleep a little earlier than I expected. But before I can drift off, however, I hear Kyousuke's voice in my head.

_"Good morning."_

I look up at the grey-haired boy, who's masking his communication by pretending to pay attention to the teacher and say, _"Good morning. Anything interesting happen to you lately?"_

_"Not particularly. Though I found out that someone left a puppy at her doorstep, so her and her parents are sort of arguing about whether or not to keep it. Seems like her parents are winning, though, since they can use the fact that she's severely allergic to dogs against her."_

_"Ah, a nasty argument indeed."_

_"Yeah. But, as stubborn as she is, I doubt she'll just give up. She'll probably go so far as to wear a mask and gloves while she's at home so she can keep him."_

_"The crazy thing about that is that I can actually see that happening," _I say, then remember that Kyoko was kidnapped last Tuesday, the 10th. I'm actually kind of curious and concerned as to how she's taking it, so I ask, _"What about Kyoko's kidnapping? How's she taking that?"_

This is the only time in our conversation so far that he's let his emotions leak into his posture. He sighs and says, _"She doesn't say much about it, but when she does, she almost always includes something along the lines of 'she'll be fine. That girl's tough; I bet she'll end up escaping and breaking out all of the others, too.', or something like that."_

_"...So not too well, huh?"_

_"Nope. She's keeping her feelings inside, but I'm confused as to why." _He sighs again._ "Is she trying to save face or something by bottling it up? Because that's no good; it'll only make the moment you snap more explosive. I wish she'd just open up to me already..."_

I lean back in my chair and stair at the ceiling, reaching for my ponytail to fiddle around with it to kill some time. _"We both have enough experience by now to understand that girls are complicated. Very, very complicated. There's no use dwelling over it; why not just come out and ask her about it?"_

_"I've already tried that. Why do you think I'm complaining about it now?" _He mimics my earlier action and rests his chin on his hand.

_"Situations like this take a little bit of coaxing, especially since it's Sayaka we're talking about."_

_"...I guess so..."_

"Kamijou-kun, Keishoutto-kun, have you seen Nakazawa-kun? I thought I saw him this morning," Saotome-sensei inquires.

Kyousuke shrugs. I guess Hideki didn't tell him when he left. "He had to leave because something came up."

"Really now? What about Akatsuki-san?"

_Oh...I still need to explain that...I'm going to need a little tact here; we don't need anyone any more panicked than they already are. _"I'm not too sure about her. I'll ask Hideki later on."

"Alright then. Well, since we've gotten that out of the way, let's get on to our lesson. Everyone, open your textbooks to..."

Again, she probably says something after that, but Kyousuke says, _"Oh, and Hideki-kun told me to tell you to head over to Sakura-san's church with me after school. He said something about getting a check up or something with Hachibey."_

_"Oh. Uh, okay. I'll need a few moments afterward to let Nanime know though."_

I pull out my book and open to a random page so I don't get get in trouble, but looking at the boring words and math formulas had about the same effect as sniffing concentrated chloroform. For some strange reason, even though I went to sleep at a rather decent time last night, I feel pretty drained, like the energy I gained from sleep was negated as soon as I awoke.

For some reason, I feel like I can trace it back to my sister. And, to be honest, that's probably not to far off of the mark. I've learned a few things about her in the past day that can lead me to believably suspect that she did something to me in my sleep.

While wondering about this, the chloroform wafting off of the textbook pages eventually gets to me and inevitably I drift off into sleep.

* * *

The lunch break passes by uneventfully. I'm so groggy that I can't bring myself to eat, much less talk.

Madoka and Hitomi had some work to do for the teacher, so Sayaka sauntered her way over to my side of the classroom to eat with Kyousuke. She did have a few insults directed at me though. All of which I guess I uncharacteristically ignored, at least in her eyes, because she turned away with a creeped out look on her face and resumed her idle chatter with Kyousuke.

So, back to sleep I go. I would spend this time thinking about things I should (or more often, shouldn't) be thinking about, but I won't be able to sleep if I do, and I need all the sleep I can get if I'm to withstand Hachibey's 'check up'. I have the feeling it's going to be a lot more physical than usual.

A dreamless sleep awaits me for the remaining few hours of school. To be honest, I'm surprised no one disturbed me. Maybe it's because of my reputation.

The bell rings and wakes me up again, this time for the end of the day. I manage to get my head up off of the desk and look around the slowly emptying classroom to dispel my grogginess. I notice an absence of Hideki's presence and belongings.

_So Katsuo and his father still have him, huh?_

I continue my observation of natural teenage chaotic energies as the room continues to empty. Over on the other side of the room Madoka and friends are packing up their things. Well, it would actually be more accurate to say Hitomi and Sayaka are packing up their things. Unfortunately for Madoka, the board displays her name and Miyagi Hajime, the former classroom druggie from my home timeline for clean-up duty. From what I can tell from my waking hours at school is that he's actually a respectable person this time around, unlike me. It's sort of like the two of us did a complete one-eighty. I suppose I can trust this indigenous Hajime to take care of Madoka.

Kyousuke walks up to my desk and leans down. "I'm going to head on ahead with Sayaka and Shizuki-san, okay?"

I wave at him to go on. "See you later then."

"See you," he says, then the gray-haired boy walks out of the classroom with the two of them. I can surmise that about seventy-five percent of the male population that sees them on their way out of the building will call him a bastard and say he's dual-wielding. Of course, that's not how it is, but it's situations like these where people's imaginations start to work overtime.

Sighing at the impending misunderstandings, I struggle to rise from my seat and sling my bag over my shoulder and then walk to the door.

As soon as I clear the exit, I feel force hit my throat that drives me immediately to the ground. I'm so surprised I can't even react properly, so my body just opts to let me lay there in the doorway.

I clutch my throat and attempt to draw in breath to calm myself, but then I feel the searing pain where I was hit and immediately stop.

_...What the hell just happened?_

That's when I see two pairs of shoes appear in my field of vision. I manage some garbled noise as I twist to look at my assaulters and see the suspiciously concerned face of Sayaka and the uncaring Hitomi looking down her nose at me. "Oi, Kyou. What been up with you the past two days? You're like a totally different person," Sayaka wonders.

"And quite frankly, it's creeping me out. So, would you mind explaining to us what happened to you? Did you get rejected by someone," Hitomi wonders likewise, except with a blatant faux-concern. Most likely she's only here because of Sayaka.

I make another gruesome noise as I reach into my shirt to grab my white cross necklace, A.K.A. my soul gem in its dormant form, and begin upon healing my crushed throat, albeit discreetly. I suppose I can forgive them this one time; there's no way they'd try to seriously kill me on purpose. Or, at least, I hope they won't.

"Hey, Kyou," Sayaka presses as she lifts me up by my collar to stand me up, "you going to answer or not?"

_I would if I could, you know! _I turn around to lean on the wall and continue healing myself with my magic, and I can feel the obstruction in my throat start to lift.

At least, until I hear one of them unzipping something. Speeding up the healing process, I look out of the corner of my eye to see Hitomi rummaging through my bag.

_Oh, crap! She's going to find the gun!_

I push myself off of the wall and replace the necklace in my shirt, then reach for my bag, but Hitomi yanks the bag away and pulls out the gun. "Oh, Keishoutto-san? I didn't realize you were into this kind of thing."

I hear Sayaka say, "Ooh, a BB gun! Let me see that, Hitomi!"

She hands Sayaka the firearm and she points it at the opposite wall in the corridor.

_"Hey, Kyou. You alright," _Kyousuke asks. I whirl around to see him coming down the hallway towards us.

_"Hell no, I'm not! Did you approve of this assault on me? Do you want me dead, too," _I accuse.

_"No, not at all. They were actually pretty concerned for you, so they asked if they could wait for you so they could find out what's wrong. Or, at least Sayaka did."_

_"Like hell they were concerned! Sayaka literally shattered my throat a second ago!"_

_"On accident, I'll bet. At least, I don't think she intended to hit you that hard."_

_"Yeah, right. Anyway, we need to get that gun away from her, now."_

_"Why?"_

_"Because it's real! Katsuo's father gave it to me to defend myself!"_

Kyousuke jumps right into action. "Hey, Sayak—"

_'BANG!'_

The gun goes off and I squeeze my eyes shut, and then I hear an even louder one by my ear. Slowly I open my eyes and see Sayaka standing stock-still with the firearm still in her hand.

I hear her gulp. "It was r-real?"

I test my vocal cords by responding. "Y-yeah."

"Why didn't you tell us," Hitomi asks in slightly stunned outrage.

I motion to my throat. "I was chopped in my throat with the force of an Olympic black belt. You think I could speak so easily after a hit like that?"

Sayaka snaps out of her shock just as quickly as she entered the state. "So? That's what you get for not dodging it like you usually do."

I push myself off of the wall and look at the crater in the wall courtesy of the bullet.

_I think that miracle might have taken a whole week's worth of luck. The rest of my week's going to suck._

_On another note; where the hell are all of the teachers? You'd think that gunshot would turn a few heads, but everyone's just going about their business like it's common. Is this seriously the extent of our school's security?_

"And how exactly was I supposed to dodge that? I'm not superhuman, you know." A bald-faced lie, in retrospect, but whatever. It's a standard expression.

"Did you lose that superhuman dodging ability overnight? Along with your perviness," Hitomi questions, a bit too hopefully at that second part.

I pick my bag up off of the floor as Kyousuke takes the pistol from Sayaka and hands it to me. "Hmph. Maybe." I put the weapon in my bag and sling it over my shoulder. "Well, I'm leaving. Are you coming straight there, Kyousuke, or are you walking these two home?"

"I'm walking them home," he says with no hesitation, as if that question was completely absurd. "As tough as these two are, it'll be safer for me to escort them. It's gotten pretty dangerous nowadays."

"True," I agree, then continue on my way down the hallway and throw my hand up in farewell. "See you guys tomorrow."

I'm able to take maybe five steps before I'm hit with the force of a freight train. It took all of my strength to keep myself from collapsing.

And who is it but my perverted little sister, who's looking up at me with bright, almost expectant eyes. "Hey, Nii-san!"

"Hey there, Nanime...how'd your day go," I ask, and then make an effort to try and remove the girl from my torso, but to no avail.

She giggles and then switches her glomp over from my torso to my arm. "It was fine. How about you, Nii-san?"

"Fine, I guess," I respond, and then try to continue the trek out of the school in a somewhat straight line. But given how much Nanime is pressing herself against me, it's kind of hard for me to even walk. I'm not that much bigger than her, after all.

"Hmm?" She takes me by the hand and leads me down the stairs and out of the school, courtesy of her boundless energy.

"Hey, Nanime, could you slow down a bit? I don't have the same energy levels as you."

She looks back at me as she pushes open the door to the school into open air. "That's why I'm taking your hand, so that I won't leave you behind." She leans in closer and says in a hushed voice, "No matter the timeline, you're still the same lazy brother I know and love, aren't you?"

I laugh nervously and say, "I guess so...listen, Nanime, I'm not going to go straight home today, so let Mom know for me, okay?"

She lets go of me and stops walking suddenly. "Huh? What's wrong?"

She looks up at me with teary eyes and says, "You're not going to t-take me home? W-what if the kidnapper shows up?"

"Relax; I'm not going to risk my sister getting abducted just to follow my own agenda," I assure her, stopping my progress so that she could catch up.

"Really?" Instantly, her face lights up as she rushes to catch up to me.

"Really." She reattaches herself to my arm like a remora to a shark, and we continue on our way home.

We spend most of the rest of the walk chatting about pretty pointless things, and somewhere in our conversation she managed to Bugs Bunny me into buying her some ice cream, the tricky little wench. The exchange went like so:

"Hey, Nii-san, could you buy me some ice cream?"

"Nah. You can buy yourself some though."

"C'mon, you can buy it, right? Please?"

"No. You buy it."

"No, _you_ buy it."

"No, _you._"

"No, _you._"

"No, _you_."

"No, _you._"

"No, _you."_

"Fine, I'll do it."

"No, I'll do it."

"You will?"

"...Dammit."

And, as such, I'm now a bit lighter as my wallet is short a few bills, and we're eating ice cream on the short remainder of the way home. But I don't necessarily regret buying the ice cream: it halted the advances of Nanime as well as silenced her, and _damn,_ was the ice cream worth every single yen of its chocolaty deliciousness. Maybe I'll head by that parlor more often.

Just as I finish off the dessert, we round the corner of our street.

_Finally home, _I think as I continue down the street with my sister in tow, who's still savoring her ill-earned treat. _Hopefully I can reach the door before Nanime can sneak in something inappropriate._

We reach the gate to her house and I open it for her. "In you go, Nanime. Don't forget to let Mom know I'll be going out for a bit."

She doesn't say anything; she just licks her lips and eyes me as I await some form of response.

Turns out I shouldn't have waited.

She slinks up to me and stands on her toes and pecks me on the cheek.

I jump back in surprise, pressing a hand to my cheek. "And why did you do that, exactly?"

She licks her lips again and turns towards the door. "You had some ice cream on your cheek. It would be a shame if we wasted the ice cream you paid for by just wiping it off, wouldn't it? I just made the most of it."

I sigh. "I'd rather you waste it than surprise me with something like that," I complain to myself, wiping the drop of saliva that she left on my cheek off.

She giggles and walks up to the door. "See ya, Nii-san. Be careful out there; the serial kidnapper is still at large, you know."

I throw my hand up in farewell and close the gate. "I'll keep that in mind." _I don't need you to remind me of that, Nanime._

* * *

Kyousuke catches up to me on the trail to the Sakura family's church. "How'd I manage to take both Sayaka and Hitomi home and then catch up to you?"

"Because I'm in no hurry, probably," I suggest.

He raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement. "I guess that makes sense. You notice anything weird on your way here?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. And you?"

"Same here. But something good happened when I took Sayaka home."

I raise my own eyebrows in interest. "Oh? And what was that?"

"She finally voiced her thoughts on the kidnappings," he answers, appearing to be pretty proud of himself. "She said something that troubled me, though."

"What did she say?"

"She said that she wished that she had the power to find and take down that kidnapper. You can imagine how things would get if she finds out she can get that wish granted," he says with a troubled expression.

"True. To be honest I'm surprised that Kyuubey didn't show his conniving little feline face as soon as she said the word 'wish'," I say, then stop in front of the decrepit former place of worship. "But sheesh, you'd think they would have taken better care of this place with how fancy it was."

"Yeah, but you forget that fancy buildings come a dime a dozen around here. This is hardly a loss for the city; it's just one less place they have to feed water and electricity to," Kyousuke explains cynically, then walks up to the door and pulls it open. "Well then, after you."

I walk into the abandoned building and look around, it having been a while since I've been here. Paint's peeling off of the walls, half of the pews are broken, rotten, moldy, or some combination of the three, the ceiling has holes pockmarking it, and a few of the mosaic windows have been shattered. Pretty much how you'd expect a neglected building battered by the elements to be.

However, the one relatively clean place in the church would be the podium, where a certain mint-green alien with shamrock-tipped ears looks to be napping peacefully.

Kyousuke knocks on one of the pews. "Hey, Hachibey."

The alien peeks at us with his beady magenta eyes. _"Hello."_

Kyousuke hooks a thumb at me. "Hideki-kun had me bring Kyou with me today."

The alien shifts his focus onto me, and I wave at him. "Yo."

He pushes himself into a sitting position and says, _"Welcome back, Keishoutto-san."_

"Thanks, I guess."

This mint-green alien is part of a cluster group of emotionless individuals called Incubators, who's existence serves the purpose of prolonging the universe's life. You can read that last part as 'fucking up the lives of pubescent girls'. Both are pretty accurate, in my opinion.

Basically, they offer a girl a single wish in exchange for giving them magical powers and having them fight the embodiments of human despair: witches. They call this transaction a 'contract', and oh-so-conveniently leave out all of the fine print of said contract, which essentially lists all of the cons. For example, the whole fact that pretty much your whole essence is moved into a little egg called a soul gem, turning your body into pretty much a sack of meat for you to abuse and heal as you like, and a thing like how if your soul gem becomes too polluted, you turn into one of the witches you're supposed to be fighting.

Oh, my bad. Excuse my crass explanation of them and their bullshit system. I suppose Homura's and Kyoko's cynicism and general rudeness has rubbed off on me. You see, their system is actually pretty practical. After a witch is killed, they sometimes drop what's called a grief seed, which is used to cleanse soul gems. Makes you sick if you think about it, huh? That's practically survivalistic cannibalism.

Anyway, after the grief seed is used up, the magical girl either can leave it lying around for it to eventually hatch into another witch, or feed it to an Incubator so it can put the emotional energy from the witch into the universe's energy reserves to put off the 'heat death' of our universe: entropy.

Don't know what entropy is? Well I'll give you a simple example. Say you wanted to make a fire. You chop up some wood to make that fire, and then you go on and light it up. The energy it takes for the tree that the logs came from to grow is not equivalent to the amount of energy it takes to burn. Meaning that energy has been lost somewhere along that timeline. Eventually, if wait long enough, there won't be enough energy left to grow a new tree, and thus begins pretty much the end of all things.

So yeah, the Incubators, though their methods are shady as all get out, are working for the greater good of the universe. And they're damn good at their job too.

And then comes the more compassionate Incubators, the ones that are able to understand human emotion and can express it. They understand what's so morally wrong in their methods, and go against their own system to give the magical girls a better chance at life. One such Incubator is Hachibey, and one way to combat the system are his task force, the Preventers.

Us Preventers are boys he contracted with the interest of preventing magical girls in the area from dying or becoming witches, most of which we all have some kind of connection to, and in the event they do become witches, bring them back from witchdom. Of course, if we do that we're pretty much guaranteed to become witches ourselves, with how much of their pollution we're absorbing into ourselves (unless we have a grief seed on hand, of course), but it's all in the name of heroic sacrifice.

_"Today I'll be evaluating your abilities, and give you analyses accordingly. Please wait while I construct the training field," _Hachibey says as he starts glowing.

"Is he..."

"Yes, he is," Kyousuke confirms, referring to the pocket realities Hachibey creates in order to assist us in training. "Come to think of it, you haven't been inside one of these pocket realities since we first tested your abilities, have you?"

"I guess not," I say.

The decrepit church slowly distorts itself into a barren grey wasteland.

"Geez, Hachibey. Is 'post-apocalypse wasteland' your default setting for these places? Can't you design a more aesthetically pleasing place," I nitpick.

_"I can, but it's unnecessary. You're not using these pocket realities for fun, so landscaping is unnecessary."_

I sigh. "You have a point, I guess."

_"I know I do."_

I reach for my bag to pull out the gun, but before I could even unzip the bag Hachibey says, _"I'm evaluating your magical abilities, not how well you can use a firearm. You're going to have to make do with what you have."  
_

_Oh._ "Okay..." I transform into my combat outfit, which consists of an black ankle-length hooded overcoat (or a sleeved cloak, whatever you want to call it) with a sleeveless shirt underneath, black pants that are parted at the knee, black knee-high multi-strap combat boots, and a glove on my right hand with my white cross-shaped soul gem on it. But, strangely, my scythe hasn't materialized along with it.

"Hey, Hachibey; I heard about what happened to Kyou in our timeline when he last used his powers, and I know the same thing happened to this timeline's version when he saved Kobayashi-san and his father. He tried to use his power and blew up pretty much every enemy around them, but at the cost of his consciousness and usage of his power," Kyousuke says. "Do you really think it's safe for him to use it again?"

_"What do you want him to do; not fight ever again? That would defeat the purpose of the contract. I need to see the malfunction with my own eyes in order to administer proper treatment," _Hachibey explains, and then many bookcase-sized tornadoes spawn around me.

_I really, really hope those aren't what I think they are. 'Cause if they are, I'm going to kill the little furball._

_"Pardon my intrusion, but I synchronized with your memory to better assess your ailment, as well as access a memory of a witch and its familiars so that I could replicate them. The familiars, at least."_

"And you picked that witch _why_," I ask, displaying my outrage a little more than I'd liked in my tone, and ball up my fists. The reason this particular witch bothers me so much is because this witch and its familiars attributed to a few significant things in my life, all within my last month in my home timeline. For starters: this witch's familiars caused my first death which consequently led to the contracting of my sister, who just so happened to be the magical girl version of the Super Witch Walpurgis Nacht, and as if that weren't enough, it killed my senior Tomoe Mami later on.

_"Because the more powerful memories in your head are also some of the most prevalent. It was simply the first one I came across other than Kriemhild Gretchen,__" _the Incubator elaborates. _"Would you rather me have picked the Witch of Salvation instead?"_

Immediately I respond with, "No, of course not."

And would you look at that. While Hachibey and I were talking, the tornadoes dissipated and formed themselves into their second form: skeletal velociraptors.

_"Alright, Keishoutto-san. Since I did not allow your weapon to manifest when you transformed, you will be forced to utilize your power. Use it to fend off these familiars."_

"Got it," I respond, and ready myself to battle with the pseudo-familiars. "I don't appreciate you leaving me without a weapon, though."

The alien space ferret doesn't answer me and Kyousuke begins his transformation into his magical garments: a light brown and black short-sleeved medieval-style jacket with elbow-length fingerless leather gauntlets and black pants with a brown stripe up the side that's fastened by a belt with his soul gem, in the shape of a one-sixteenth musical note, as his belt buckle, and simple boots and a musketeer hat.

The first of the familiars begins its advance on me and somehow, despite being a collection of animated bones, the raptor screeches at me and then lunges.

I draw in the negative energy from the familiars and decide to try and form myself a weapon to defend myself, which will probably be a broadsword or something of the sort, but there's a flash in my vision. Or rather, instead of white obscuring my vision for a split-second, it was darkness, and I start to feel extremely lightheaded.

"W-what the h-hell is this..." I wonder to myself, holding my head and falling to a knee. The familiar continues its advance on me, and the other familiars also start to follow its leader's influence and advance as well. As they begin to close in, I struggle to push myself up to face the assailants, and I hold out my hand to instead blow them to kingdom come.

_Three...two...one..._

I will a wave of energy to manifest and decimate the familiars, but the same 'flash' from earlier appears in my vision and I get a splitting headache and collapse completely.

However, as I struggle to retain my consciousness, I notice what looks like a real life shadow version of a chain lightning spell enveloping all of the familiars and they all fall as a piles of bone powder.

_What...was that..., _I wonder in mind, and after a while everything fades into black.

* * *

When I come to, I see Kyousuke running his sword through a black, tentacle-riddled silhouette of a girl, covered in creamsicle-colored musical notes.

I look down at myself and notice I'm back in my school uniform, and my soul gem, which is strangely hanging outside of my shirt instead of inside, and it's stark-white again. I guess that means that haywire attack at the end there was enough to cleanse my gem.

I push myself up onto my elbows and watch as the witch dissolves and Hachibey pads up to Kyousuke looking to have a conversation with him, what with how he's nodding and moving his mouth in response. I can't quite make out what the two of them are saying; Kyousuke's too far away for me to hear and Hachibey's most likely talking privately with Kyousuke, because otherwise I would hear his voice in my head, too.

"I wonder what they're talking about so seriously," I say, and push myself upright on shaky legs. "My god, that tired me out..."

The two of them seem to finish their conversation, because they begin moving towards me. "Are you okay, Kyou? Is anything still hurting," Kyousuke asks.

"No, I think I'm fine," I halfheartedly assure him. I turn to Hachibey and ask, "So? What did you find out?"

_"It's quite the explanation; you might want to sit back down," _Hachibey instructs as the pocket dimension begins to transition back into the church.

_Still, this run down place somehow looks better than Hachibey's barren training grounds. I really hope he has more maps prepared for later training._

I sit down on one of the pews and await Hachibey's explanation. "So?"

Kyousuke reverts to his normal attire and takes a seat on a pew in front of me, and he alien pads back up to the podium, laying down on it to face me. _"While you were unconscious, I went over what your contract's details. As I looked over the procedure I used to form your contract here and in your native timeline, I could confirm that we both made your alternate persona, Jikan Rei, into an actual component of your soul._

_Knowing of the nature of the way we decided to interpret and grant your wish—the parasitic-commensalistic relationship that we granted to you—we set up two measures to prevent the power from being able to totally consume you._

_One: turning Jikan Rei into a component of your body that keeps your power in check. And two: modifying your right arm to display your power's proximity to taking control of you. You can interpret that as 'how much longer Rei can contain your power before he's out of energy'."_

"Oh...that explains...a lot. But it doesn't explain why I can't use my power anymore," I say, wondering why my timeline's Hachibey wouldn't have told me this before.

_"Well, that information wasn't in the records. Rather, I had to ask Jikan-san himself."_

"Oh, you di—what?! You talked to him?"

_"I did, but he said he couldn't talk for long because it takes almost all of his concentration to keep up what he's doing, so he got straight to the point. Basically, your power is totally out of control, so any single instance of you using it becomes dangerous for you. It has gotten to the point that Rei can't combat it when it's riled up when you're in combat, so he's taken it upon himself to seal it."_

I look up at the Incubator. "So I'm basically a walking, talking can o' chaos, huh?"

_"If that's how you want to put it. But, inevitably, you're going to need to be able to use it if you want to avoid being a burden to the others. As you are now, you're essentially useless, even with your weapon, unless you've somehow shot up in skill with your scythe overnight."_

I cringe. Somehow I feel like he just took a stab at me, even though there was no spite in that statement. "And exactly how are am I supposed to be able to use it again? I can't ask Rei to remove the seal, can I?"

"Yeah, Hachibey, just what exactly is Kyou supposed to do," Kyousuke asks, reminding me that he's actually in the building. Come to think of it, he hasn't really said much since the conversation he had with Hachibey earlier. Now I'm even more curious as to what he told him.

_"Keep trying to use it."_

Dead silence. Not a word is said for a while, because of the absurdity of that statement.

_That's _supposed to be the solution to my problem? He just saw what happens when I try to use it; does he want me to suffer? "Do you...by any chance...want me dead, too?"

The Incubator's tail twitches. _"No, nothing like that. Rather, you have to be able to gain better control of it. You can think of it as exposure training if it makes it easier for you."_

"And how am I supposed to go about that," I ask.

_"Use your power until you can't anymore. Your body alerts you whenever you've reached the limit, right?"_

"Yeah...My vision blanks out for a second and I get lightheaded."

_"Then you have to use your power past that point. And stay conscious afterwards. That's probably the hardest part; staying conscious."_

"I feel like that's an understatement; that staying conscious will be one of the harder things to do. Have you ever fallen unconscious, Hachibey?" _Wait, no, there's actually a better question than that._ "_Can_ you even fall unconscious?"

Hachibey pushes himself back up on his hind legs. _"No, not really."_

"What about you, Kyousuke? Have you ever..." I look at the boy in front of me and notice his body has gone stiff. "Ah, nevermind." Kyousuke probably is remembering his injury. I'd heard he'd passed out from either the pain or the shock when _it_ happened.

He waves it off. "It's fine," he says, then gets up from his seat and walks to the aisle. "Anyway, that's quite the handicap you have, Kyou. You'll need to work extra hard to get rid of it, you know. Good luck." He begins to walk down the aisle.

"You're leaving, Kyousuke?"

"Yeah. I promised Sayaka I'd help her with her homework today, so I've got to go," he explains, and continues to the door. "See you guys later."

"See you."

_"See you, Kamijou-san."_

And with that, Kyousuke leaves the broken place of worship.

"Well...I guess there's no helping things, right? I guess I just have to find a way to cope, you know," I say, getting up from my seat on the pew. "This is really a pain, though."

_"My apologies. I suppose I did make things a bit difficult for you. I didn't think things would get so difficult when the contract was made."_

I wave it off. "Don't worry about it." I grab my necklace and tuck it back into my shirt. "Well, I'm going to head on home, too. I feel like Nanime'll give Mom a lot of trouble if I don't return soon."

_"Ah, taking one for the team, are we? On the surface, you sister seems to admire you a bit too much, but in reality, your sister has a serious brother complex, doesn't she?"_

I sigh. "So you've figured her out, huh? I'll tell you it's not all animes and manga cut it out to be, I've only really dealt with it for two days. Frankly, it's just weird."

I can imagine that if Hachibey were a human he'd scoff. _"I'm surprised it took you that long to figure that out. The same goes for all media, Keishoutto-san."_

"Yeah, yeah. I don't need you to tell me that," I say and turn towards the door. "See you later, Hachibey."

He wiggles his tail and waves at me with his paw. _"See you, Keishoutto-san. Hopefully your sister doesn't leave you as a dried-out husk by morning."_

I laugh at that. "I hope not." That's really, really serious business there. Seriously, what's with everyone and thinking they can take these incestous matters so lightly?

I push my way through the doors and into the dusk, and begin the trek back to my house with a strong sense of foreboding. Hachibey may have said that in jest, but that statement couldn't be any less amusing to me. Dying of dehydration from loss of fluid is an actual worry for me.

* * *

**A/N: The struggle is real for Kyou. That is all.**


	6. Chapter 5: Chronicle: Omincharao Obito

**Chapter 5: Chronicle: Omincharao Obito**

* * *

[Kyou's POV]

It's Saturday the 21st, a day after my purposely uneventful birthday, where I am 14 and one day for the _second time_ in my life. I say 'purposely' because I doesn't feel right to celebrate something that I just celebrated a month ago from my perspective, and after arguing that point relentlessly to my equally relentless sister, I managed to get her to keep it to herself, and we had a wonderful small family celebration.

And though I say it doesn't feel right, that really isn't the main reason why I didn't want to make it a big thing. To be honest, I was just afraid that I'd get ambushed and have my hair drastically shortened like what happened last time. I never quite got Sayaka and her accomplices back for that.

Anyway, now to the present: Hideki, Kyousuke and I are in a pocket reality at the old Sakura church, with a young familiar face I haven't seen since our hellish fight with Walpurgis Nacht, the dark-blue-haired, gold-eyed Omincharao Obito.

Kyousuke and Obito are lined up in front of each other in their magical attire, ready for Hachibey's combat assessment.

I lean towards Hideki. "So, Hideki...you mind if I ask you a few questions while those two are fighting?"

"Eh, sure. Why not?" He pats his chest. "Fire at me."

I take a moment to decide on what question palette I want to equip, but before I can decide on one there's a clang on the ground between us.

"Hmm?" I look down to see Kyousuke's rapier at my feet, and before I even blink it disappears and I feel a breeze.

I turn towards where they started their fight and see only blurs, and that's only if I try really hard.

"Give it up, Kyou. It's no use trying to follow them. They're moving at at least two times the speed of light," Hideki says.

"...What?"

"Or, to be more precise: a quadrillion miles an hour, or about 1.5 million times the speed of light."

"You're joking, right? How did you even get that measurement?"

"At full speed, Kyousuke-kun runs a mile in six minutes, and divided that into an hour and got ten miles an hour. For every body part that's injured—head, hands, forearms, upper arms, torso, thighs, shins, and feet—his speed increases tenfold. The equation makes out to be this: 10 times 10 to the fourteenth power (10 x 10^14), which is a quadrillion miles-per-hour, and that can be converted to approximately 1,491,177 times the speed of light, which is 999,999,894,491,187 miles per hour, or approximately a quadrillion miles-per-hour." Hideki explains, and I swear I could feel every physicist ever turning in their graves. "Of course, I'm only assuming that Kyousuke is going all out, by using a lot more magic to set the multiplier on his body to the maximum ten instead of the default 2, which is the only way he's able to reach this outrageous speed." He shifts in his seat and crosses his arms. "And don't even get me started on Obito. That boy's maximum speed is far, _far_ beyond that, but he can only reach it on a very good or very bad day. On mediocre days like this, the top he can reach without using too much magic would be around fifty times of Kyousuke's max."

The blurs transfer to my immediate area with a few sparks thrown in the mix to spice things up, and I tense a bit in wariness. "Um...I have nothing to say about that except that that is _fast._ It kind of makes Quicksilver and the Flash seem like snails." I pause as thoughts of just how easily Hideki and I could be curbstomped if we got on their bad sides. I'm not even sure Rin would be able to do much against those two. "Is that even scientifically possible?"

"No, and it never will be. But you know, magic. That's the side we operate on, after all." He lays his ringblade down and taps it, and it thickens and the hole shrinks, growing up until it is the size of a stool, then kicks it and it splits into another one. "Take a seat, Kyou. They may be unfathomably fast and we can expect the fight to be done soon, but I know that you don't want to be standing the whole time, do you? Besides, you still have to ask your questions, don't you?"

"Oh." I take a seat and realize that I completely forgot that I was supposed to be questioning Hideki when he dropped that info bomb in my face. "Well, question number one—" The many clangs and clashes we could hear from their battle suddenly becomes deafening. I open my mouth and say, "What the...", but the conflict is too loud for me to hear even myself speak.

_"Looks like one of them decided to use us to their advantage. We'll have to speak like this until it passes."_

I cover my ears to try and block the sound. _"Okay, but I think the sound pushed all thoughts except 'Damn that's loud' out of my head."_

He covers his ears too. _"I'll help you out then. You want to know things like how my time travel works and when Akemi-san shows up in this timeline, right?"_

I look questioningly at the brown-haired boy. _"Yeah, you're right. Are you going to tell me how you knew that?"_

The clanging lowers to a more tolerable level, and he reaches behind him, then pulls out a paper. He opens it and, in my handwriting, there's the list of questions I wanted to have answered that I made a day or two ago. _"I can only answer two of these questions, however. I'll start with my time travel, then." _He hands me my paper.

I take it and put in my bag. _"Alright. Explain away."_

He clears his throat but starts in thought-speak. _"There are two types of time travel: one where you are added to a time as an independent entity from your past self, and mental time travel, where your consciousness is sent back rather than your body."_

_"I take it yours is the latter, am I right?"_

He nods. "_Yep. However, there's a little more to it. Your condition—not necessarily your physical one—is sent back as well. So for example: in this timeline, Kyousuke-kun was originally not supposed to have contracted, but since the version of him being sent back was one, and we sort of needed him to be one when he was sent back, he retained his status as a Preventer."_

I nod. I think I'm starting to understand now._ "So basically whatever you want to send back will be sent back?"_

_"Pretty much." _He picks at a lock of his hair and pulls out some lint, then throws it on the ground. _"Also; a bit of trivia. This universe, in a way, is centered around you."_

I sigh. There's another condition to add to my profile. I swear I'm overloaded with a bit too many things at the moment. _"So I'm Eucliwood now, huh? Or would Haruhi be a better example here?"_

_"No, no. Not center of the universe in that sense. It's just that there had to be a rewrite of the universal chronicle to fit your existence in. There are only three universes where you exist, and this one was not supposed to be one of them."_

_"How do you know all of this again?"_

He knocks on the ring he's sitting on. _"I can travel through time and space, in case you forgot in these last few seconds. I've looked at a lot of timelines, a lot of separate universes, and so far I've only seen three where you exist."_

_"Ah."_

There's a gust of wind and Obito, looking battered, bruised, and more than a bit tired, is straddling Kyousuke with a sickle pressed against his neck. A second or two later, another metallic clang is heard courtesy of the light-to-sound lag the two of them produce.

_"Omincharao-san's win-loss ratio is now 54-46," _Hachibey says, sort of appearing in front of us, or at least making himself noticeable to us for the first time since before the fight began. _"Now, Keishoutto-san, Hideki, it's your turn."_

The two of us stand up and I transform as Hideki adjusts his ringblades to their normal size. _"Have you been doing as I instructed, Keishoutto-san?"_

"Yeah," I say, rubbing my hand over my soul gem on my right hand and drawing the negativity from it and form it into a ball. "Or at least, I think I did."

Hideki raises an eyebrow in curiosity, and if Hachibey could do the same, he would. _"What do you mean, you think you did?" _The mint-green Incubator asks.

I conjure my scythe as I turn to face the brown-haired boy and Hachibey. "Well, I have what I guess would be the results of it, but I don't really have the memory of overloading. I can sort of remember being in my backyard and looking up at the sky and all, with blackness, swirling around me, but after that's a blur. Maybe I tried to do it twice in a row and passed out on both of those separate occasions." I shrug my shoulders. "But whatever. The point is that I can control what I guess could equate to the volume of a teacup."

"Did _you_ make that measurement?" Hideki asks with mild skepticism and crossing his arms.

I wave away that notion. "No, no. I'm just throwing around values. But I'm guessing if I turned the maximum size of what I can use into a liquid and poured it into a teacup, it would fill it to the brim."

_"Alright, but be careful. Such neophytic miscalculations could result in a fatality, and your enemy's may or may not be included."_

I sigh again and nod. "Got it, Hachibey."

He nods back and looks at each of us in turn. _"Good. Now, I'll have you two know that this battle will begin with whomever makes the first move. Consider it a test on your reaction time and efficiency."_

"Huh?" I look at the retreating Incubator in slight disbelief, but resign to get ready to fight the veteran instead of complain.

Or at least, I start to, because now I'm looking up at the colorless, cloudless grey sky above us, characteristic of this particular Incubator's pocket reality.

There's a glint for the faintest of seconds, and then I see a gloved hand come out of nowhere and grab me by my collar.

Next thing I know I'm flying through the air. How exactly it happened is something I can't quite think of right now, but in the end it really doesn't matter.

What does, however, is getting oriented again. Which unfortunately is a bit difficult without and kind on landscape to go by. You can't tell the ground from the sky at the horizon because of Hachibey's insistence on conformity to save energy, the lazy-ass exomorph.

My first visual cue appears in the form of Hideki upside-down from one of his ringblades, his fist cocked back in preparation to strike.

_Alright, he's upside-down to me, so up is towards the ground and down is up._

I grin involuntarily; this is my first combat experience with another person since Hideki and Kyousuke's right of passage when I first contracted. Or maybe even my fight with Hideki and Homura on the bridge, though I'm not too sure that would count since I was unconscious during it all. I send a blast downwards by my perspective and send myself just barely over Hideki, towards the sky.

The wind is knocked from me as I hit the ground and skid along it; it's all I can to to right myself. _W-what the hell? Did he dupe me? Or did he send me through one of his rings?_

I look around for any instance of his weapon, but the closest one, or rather, the _only _one is hovering in the air with Hideki hanging on it like the idiotic monkey he is.

He flashes me a cheeky grin and a 'V' sign with his fingers. I respond using the longer, more..._inappropriate _variant of the gesture.

I push myself off of the ground and look at my gem on the back of my hand, which happens to be a very, _very _light grey; something that can only be seen as a problem by me, since I'm practically useless without the pollution that plagues us magical boys and girls.

Holding out my hand, I draw in negativity from our two human spectators: Obito and Kyousuke, who could probably use the cleansing courtesy of their intense skirmish, while simultaneously calling my scythe forth.

I finish the deed right as my weapon reaches me, and Hideki breaks his ringblade in two and throws one down toward me, and as soon as it gets pretty close to me, he begins to duck through the hoop.

Mistake number 1 on his part.

Here are some words that might clue you in to what's about to happen: ultra-thin wires.

The first sign I see of Hideki coming through the ring, I hop back and conjure the wires to completely surround him. Though if he notices, he ignores it as he cocks his hand back to strike.

I smirk. _Heh. I don't know what you're playing at, but you can't get out off this one. Your closest and last ringblade is cut off by my wires, and you can't teleport out of the snare without it. Take this loss, Hideki._

I drive forward my own fist imbued with the rest of the negativity in my gem and fire it at Hideki...

Then there's a blur when it's about to hit, and not even a second later I'm sent sprawling onto the ground, many feet away from my wire trap compared to where I was before, and lacking a bit in the breath department.

_W-what?_

if I look closely at Hideki, there's a glowing lavender-ringed circle in front of him, and after a few moments the circle expands, and he steps out from it, from my trap.

"H-how...?"

It's Hideki's turn to grin. "When did I ever say I needed my rings to teleport?" He draws his ringblades to him and walks forward. "I just use less magic that way."

"Is that right?" I push myself off of the ground, readying myself for round two by taking the negativity instead from myself.

Then the Incubator jumps In between us. _"That's enough now, you two."_

I cock an eyebrow at him. "Why?"

_"Simply because it would be problematic if your power went out of control while sparring."_

"Tch." _Well, he has a point..._

I revert to my normal attire. "Well, that's a downer. I kind of wanted to finish this fight; get a definite winner."

He does the same and walks toward the slowly-healing Kyousuke and Obito. "I suppose so. Maybe another day."

"Better be soon, though." I run my hand through my hair. "For some reason I'm itching for a fight."

Obito snorts. "Figures; Kyousuke and I are itching for a rematch."

The pocket dimension begins to dissipate around us, revealing to us the rickety old Sakura church.

The sun is beginning to dip towards the horizon, and Kyousuke looks at his watch. "It's gotten pretty late; I'm going to head on home, guys."

"Alright, see you on Monday, Kyousuke," I say.

"See you," He responds, and becomes the first of us to leave today's session.

Hideki stays walking in the direction of the door, too. "I've gotta get back, too." He throws up a hand in farewell, but turns back suddenly and looks at me. "Oh, and it's March 16."

"Huh?"

"You wanted to know when Akemi-san shows up, right? That's the day."

Again I cock an eyebrow. "But she showed up on the first in the last timeline..."

"The last timeline was anomalous in more than one way, Kyou." He continues his trek out of the abandoned building. "See y'all."

"Ah...yeah. See you..."

As Hideki gets farther away, I feel my mood begin to get more and more sour as I realize that I'm going to have to do the same thing those two are doing sooner or later. The only problem is that I live the farthest of everyone here by a longshot. Walking, it'll take me at least thirty more minutes than those two. I live way closer to Asunaro and Sarousha on my side—the eastern side of the city and the other side of town, than Kasamino.

I sigh and turn towards the last two remaining life forms, both of which are staring at me.

"W-what? Why are you staring at me?"

Obito points at me. "Look down."

I look down and see blackness radiating from my arms.

_"You're a miasma factory, Keishoutto-san." _Hachibey flicks his tail and hops onto Obito's shoulder.

"Do you not want to go home that badly," Obito asks.

I shake my head. "It's not that I don't want to go home; I just don't want to go through that long walk. Especially since it's going to be pitch-black outside halfway into the walk."

The ten-year-old takes this all in and looks to have an internal debate. "Hmm...I suppose, since it's getting late, you can stay at my place."

_Where's this coming from?_

"Is that really okay? I don't want to impose on you just because you're younger than me."

He waves it off. "Relax; I don't mind." He turns toward the door. "Come on. I don't live that far from here."

* * *

"I'm home!" Obito yells as he enters his small home. The only problem is that...well...he yelled it to a wall. For whatever reason when you surpass the first obstacle-the front door, you're faced with another door.

Obito takes off his shoes and opens the door, revealing a dimly lit stairwell. "Keiichi-san, Mion-san, I've brought a friend!"

I remove my own shoes and follow him down the stairs.

Let me tell you all something that you should've learned as soon as you left the womb; looks are deceiving. That applies to the Omincharao household. Outside of the house is nothing special: a small-looking house on the older side and in a questionable neighborhood, but turns out that's just a façade. As soon as I reach the bottom of the stairs and pass by the third door, I'm faced with a fabulous grand hall fit for the finest of royalty. With its enormous stone columns, gilded chandeliers and incredible marble floors, it is a sight to behold. And now, I'm starting to feel a bit too...plain for this house.

There's a single open door on the far left side of the room, which Obito makes a beeline to.

He walks though the door and smacks a middle-aged brown-haired man—probably Keiichi—in his head as he walks past. "Oi, Obito! What's the big idea?"

Obito shrugs as he walks over into another room; probably a kitchen for all of the clangs, chopping, and simmering I'm hearing in there. Moments later, a lady with green hair and similar green eyes wearing a white 'Sonozaki Pride' shirt, and from what I can see that's _all _she's wearing. I can assume that this woman is the 'Mion' woman that Obito called out to.

"Oh?" She focuses her gaze on me, sizing me up and digging into my soul for something worth chewing on. "My, Obito, you're growing up fast, aren't you?"

Obito and I look at her, puzzled.

She motions to me. "I mean, you're already bringing girls home at your-"

I hold up a hand. "Pardon me, ma'am, but I'm actually a guy. My name is Keishoutto Kyousuke."

Her eyes widen. "R-really? Are you sure you're not just going through a gender identity crisis or something, Keishoutto-kun?"

"I'm positive, ma'am."

She quirks an eyebrow. "Okay, I'll believe you," she says, and turns back to the kitchen. "Oh, and stop it with the 'ma'am' stuff. It makes me feel old."

The old man reappears after fading into the background for a few moments. "But you _are _old, Mion."

I hear her grit her teeth. "I'm sorry, dear, I didn't catch that."

The man looks nervously at her, not daring to repeat lest he probably lose his life. "Nothing."

She smiles. "Good." She starts walking and freezes at the doorway, then steps aside as Obito walks out of the kitchen carrying a girl younger than him with the same dark-blue hair and gold eyes that he has.

_Was she in there the whole time?_

I look at Mion-san and see a pitying look on her face. When she sees me looking at her, she switches to a smile as she says, "Shouko, I thought you were supposed to be watching the food."

The girl whispers in Obito's ear, and he says, "She said she wanted to see Keishoutto-san."

Mion-san shrugs. "Well, that's fine. Since everyone's here now, I might as well introduce everybody. I'm Sonozaki Mion, that geezer over there is Keiichi, and those two are my adopted kids, Obito and Shouko."

I break out into a cold sweat. "_S-Sonozaki_? Like, _that_ Sonozaki family?"

"Nope," she says without skipping a beat. "The association between my family name and the names of the characters from a certain series are purely coincidental."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, it is. Now, Obito, Shouko, go on and take your baths, okay," she commands them, and Obito puts Shouko down and they disappear into another room.

The room lets out a collective breath that we didn't know we were holding. Or at least, one that I wasn't aware of.

"Thanks for playing along, kiddo," Keiichi says, sinking back into his recliner.

"Yeah, thanks," Mion adds.

"No problem, I guess."

Now, you may be wondering what Keiichi meant by 'playing along'. Well, that's all due to the tiny little fact that a certain someone wasn't there. And by that I mean _didn't exist._

That person was Omincharao Shouko. The girl I saw was really just what I imagined his sister would look like, purely for sake of making what I just witnessed less sad. And since the two parents here thought nothing of their adopted son's strange behavior, I thought it wise to go along with it.

What remains unanswered, however, is the reason why he's pretending to have a sister.

"I bet you're wondering why he's pretending to have a sister, aren't you," Keiichi asks, reading my mind. "Actually, it's more like pretending to still have a one."

"So he actually had one in the past?"

Mion nods. "Yes, up until last year."

"So what happened to make _this _possible?"

Mion leans against the wall; Keiichi somehow sinks deeper into his chair. "Well," the man starts, "to put it simply, Shouko's dead. And Shouko was this boy's emotional lifeline. Their family had stepped on the toes of a deep, _deep_ crime organization unknowingly, and when said organization insisted they make reparations, they denied them because of their outrageous price."

"And if I know anything about organizations like those," Mion continues, "that's something that you never, _ever _do, unless you have a deathwish." She claps her hands and yells, "Aria!"

A blond-haired, blue-eyed maid who I could have sworn wasn't there a second ago materializes. "Yes, Mion-sama?"

"Could you do me a favor and take over for dinner?"

She bows and says, "Yes, Mion-sama," and leaves to carry out the order.

"Sorry about that," she says, then clears her throat. "Well, after that they gradually picked off the family, starting from the grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and close friends, and then when their parents went to go settle things, they died in an accident, which led to his emotional attachment to his sister escalate to the point that he'd probably go insane without her."

Keiichi sits up in his seat with an edge in his voice. "That somehow made their vendetta with their parents transfer to Obito, and it escalated to a family extinction-level event when the boy went to the police for help, the same officer we heard all of this from, and Mitakihara's current chief of police. They lured the poor boy away and attempted to off him while they did some unspeakable things to poor Shouko, who he'd left at home to ensure she didn't get hurt."

I snort. "That certainly worked well," I comment, voiced laced thick with sarcasm.

"Certainly did," Mion responds with equal facetiousness. "And he had to come home to see the nightmare makeover she was put through. The girl was broken, and he might have been just as affected as she was."

"But here's where the story gets a bit hazy," Keiichi continues. "We don't know much of what happened after that, but we do know that that gang was pretty much eradicated within the month, and his sister died soon after. The parties responsible for both are still shrouded in mystery. The end result: a boy who denied his sister's fate so strongly that it changed his reality and made him forget everything that happened."

My eyes widen of their own accord. "You mean he has no memory of any of that?"

"Pretty much," Mion answers. "He has no recollection of that horrific sequence of events, which is probably for the best, nor of him contracting and becoming a magical boy."

"Oh...wait. Wait one second. You know about that?"

"About what," she asks.

"About him being a Preventer?"

"Of course," Keiichi answers. "It's kind of a hard secret to keep, you know, especially if your ten."

Mion chuckles. "You begin to suspect things when your ten year-old son is leaving in the dead of night and coming back _in the dead of night_. Of course, we had no choice but to leave him to do his job when he saved us from a witch that one time."

"You can't forget when he started moving impossibly fast when we told him he had to clean his room before going to his friend's house," Keiichi adds to the examples.

"Huh..."

"Well, anyway—"

Obito comes back into our presence, hand cupped as if he were holding someone's hand. "Is dinner done yet, Mion-san?"

Mion breaks away from Keiichi-san and I and says, "Almost. It'll go quicker if we go and help Aria, don't you think?"

"Yeah," the boy says with far too much enthusiasm and goes into the kitchen, dragging his non-existent sister with him.

I move closer to Keiichi. "Have you guys ever thought about telling him?"

Keiichi once again sinks into his chair, the piece of furniture looking to nearly engulf the man. It kind of makes me wonder where they bought it. "Well, we have, but at that point it becomes a decision whether to not tell him and continue to let him live a lie or tell him and sacrifice the lives of thousands or even _millions_ of people, including our own. He _is _insane after all, and he has power that makes Goku seem like an ant. Revealing that fact to him would probably set him over the edge and buy us and everyone else in Japan a one-way ticket to the afterlife."

* * *

It's morning. That's what I've managed to figure out.

It's also Sunday the twenty-second, nine-thirty-seven ante meridiem. That, I found out from the clock next to my massive bed. This room is just a guest room, yet this room is probably one of the fanciest things you can imagine, and then some. I feel like I'm tainting the area with my normalcy.

Making the bed up as carefully as I can, I pick up my bag, freshly-washed clothes courtesy of their maid, Aria, and phone and make my way to the bathroom to do hygeine. And, fortunately, I didn't walk in on anyone. One particular pro of this visit besides witnessing one of the fanciest abodes I will ever see in my life is that there was not one perverted misunderstanding or accident, something that occurred almost everywhere I went since I arrived five days ago.

However, there are two very huge cons to this visit. One: that exposition cluster-bomb that was dropped on me last night, and two: the fact that I completely forgot to let Mom and Nanime know that I was staying over at a friends house. That's going to make this return home especially dread-filled.

I do my hygiene and get dressed, put the pajamas I borrowed from them on the bed, then head to the kitchen where a surprisingly simple and traditional breakfast is being served: rice, fried eggs and steamed vegetables, nattō, and green tea.

That being said, the only person awake at the moment is Mion-san. She's sitting at the bar digging into her food, and the same breakfast is laid out beside her with no one to eat it.

She looks up. "Oh, you're awake now, huh?"

"Yeah." I slide into the seat beside her, say a blessing, and then set in to eat. "Where're the other two...er, three?"

"Still asleep; the lazy bums." She takes a sip of her tea. "Or at least Kei-chan is. Obito may be awake, but he only gets out of bed when his sister wakes up."

"Huh..." I'm not too sure what to say about that sad scenario, so I instead just chew my food softly. "So...you ever watch Umineko?"

She shakes her head. "Is that an anime? Because I'll have you know I don't watch anime."

I decide to ignore that for sake of saying what I want to say. "It was made by Ryukishi07, too..."

She grits her teeth. "Please do not mention that man's name in front of me. He's caused me a lot of unnecessary trouble thanks to that wretched anime, and I wholly promise that the day that I meet him will be the day that he dies."

I chew my food and say, "You're very...passionate, to say the least."

"Of course I am," she says as she slams her hand down on the counter. "Do you know how hard it is for Kei-chan and I to even utter our names without some sort of wary reaction? I think that damned Ryukishi has some sort of issue with us and the others that we don't know about and this is how he decided to settle it."

I have to stop chewing to fully realize what she said. "You mean the others exist too?"

She gives me a sidelong glance. "Well, yeah. If Kei-chan and I exist, wouldn't it make sense for them to exist, too?"

"Well...yeah, I guess. I suppose I ought to think before I ask my questions," I say, and finish off my breakfast by gulping down the rest of the tea.

"So you're finally done, huh?" She gets up and takes both of our sets of dishes to the sink. "Let's get going then. You didn't call and let your parents know last night, did you?"

I cringe. "You knew?"

"More or less, yeah. Now come on. Maybe your punishment will be lessened if you get home earlier."

"Hopefully," I say as I put my phone in my pocket and sling my bag over my shoulder, then follow Mion-san up the stairs.

She opens the door at the top of the steps and I notice a key rack that I hadn't noticed when I first came down.

"Uh, was that always there?"

"Hm?" She looks at where I'm pointing and raises her eyebrows in recognition. "Oh, this? No, no, Aria just put this up. She was busy all day yesterday making spares, since we just moved in here a week or so ago."

I take note of the massive number of keys on the rack; probably one for each room, and say, "That had to take a while."

"It did. That's why I made breakfast this morning: to give her a well-earned rest. Not that that involves a lot of physical activity, but whatever." She pulls two keys off of the rack and puts her shoes on. I follow suit and the two of us exit the house with her locking the door to the house with one key and using the other one to start the van waiting for us in the driveway.

Then something strange happened: we don't speak. It may not seem strange; the fact that two complete strangers have nothing to say to each other, but she seems rather talkative in nature, and I'm not always quiet myself. The older woman seems to be thinking hard about something as we ride into town, back to my house.

Fifteen minutes into the ride and five minutes away from my house, she finally says something. "Hey."

"Yes?"

"Listen, I know this is going to seem a bit weird coming from someone you just met, but hear me out, please. I need a favor." She has a sort of sullen tone of voice, matching the expression she had on her face during the first half of the ride.

I nod. "It's not weird at all, Mion-san. What is it?"

"Well...I want to entrust my son to you. Not in a weird way, but more as a way to break him out of the lie that he's living."

"And...how do you want me to do that, Mion-san?"

"I don't know how. But I'm thinking that, if he can latch on to someone like he did his sister, he might be able to accept reality as it is."

"I..." I sigh. I want to call her irresponsible for putting this responsibility on someone else, but I can't do that. "I can't promise anything, but I can try."

"Thank you. That's all I needed to hear." She breathes a sigh of relief, and I begin to direct her to my house as she gets closer to it. _Yeah, she asked me to do that for her own peace of mind, rather than to truly help him._ And like with the Incubators, I can't quite get mad at her for it. Mion-san's only follow a human desire for comfort, and if this is what helps her reach it, it's fine, if only because it could actually work to help Obito, too.

She pulls up in front of my house, and not even two seconds later the door flies open and Nanime runs out on the brink of tears, and Mom follows right after her.

_Oh lord. Here it comes. _"Thank you for having me, Mion-san."

She waves it off. "Don't worry about it. You're free to come back again at anytime."

I open my door and are immediately yanked out by Nanime and pulled into an embrace so strong it shouldn't be humanly possible.

"OhmygodOnii-sanIwassoworriedhowcouldyouleavemelikethatdon'tdothateveragainpleaseIcouldn'tsleepatallbecauseIwasworriedsomuchyouhavetotakeresponsibility..." Nanime rants about what's probably how much she was worried as she slowly crushes the air from my lungs with a vice grip.

"Nanime...can't breathe..." I don't think even my contract-enhanced strength will get me out of this one.

Meanwhile, my mom is talking to Mion-san, and I can tell already that the two of them would be best of friends from how they're speaking to each other.

Just as I feel my consciousness starting to slip away, I'm released and fall to the ground and, naturally, I take very, very deep breaths to try and replenish my air supply. But before I can get it all back, Mom grabs me by my collar and yanks me up off of the ground. "Don't you ever, _ever_ do something like this again, unless you want it to be so you can't leave the house ever again."

If I could disappear right now, I would. "Yes ma'am," I say in barely a whisper.

"As long as we're on the same page." She drops me and I fall to the ground yet again. "Thanks again for taking care of my mess of a son."

Mion-san dismisses it with a wave. "Don't worry about it. Take care, you all," she says, and gets back into the car.

My mom throws something on the ground in front of my face: an upside-down card. "Sonozaki-san told me to give you this. She said it's from Obito."

I turn the card over and see a Joker card with Obito posing as the titular character with the much more familiar twin Berettas.

"Heh. That kid—" I'm cut off abruptly as I'm entwined my something: my Mom's puella magi weapon: a yo-yo.

"And now: your punishment. Your sister deprived me of a lot of sleep since you decided to stay out last night, so now you're going to have to take responsibility."

Fast-forward about five minutes, and you'll find me locked in my room from the outside with my sister. I guess I can be thankful that I got plenty of rest a the Sonozaki's, because I'm going to need all of the energy I have and then some to fend her off.

* * *

**A/N: This took a while, I know. I had started to write one chapter, but then realized that it's relevance to the plot was at around zero (it was Kyou's birthday chapter, and since things were coming along a bit slowly I figured a slice of life would be a big no-no at this point), so I scrapped it and wrote this instead, since Obito's backstory is actually relevant in some way to the plot. It's strange, since both this one and the last one were the same length but the former took almost two months and this one just two days. But I guess I can owe that to the fourth-quarter scramble to turn in work.**

**Oh, and please don't hate me for what I did to Obito. He was the least developed of the Preventers, even less so than Hideki, so I had to do him some justice and..._this_ happened. Instead of doing him justice I wronged him in an unforgivable way. It's reason enough for Zetsubou-sensei to _actually_ despair for a valid reason.**

**See you guys next chapter, hopefully on a more...upbeat note.**


	7. Chapter 6: Detective Work III

****Chapter 6:******** Detective Work III****

* * *

[3rd Person POV]

Tuesday, February 24. Salem, Oregon, Reshigi household.

It's six o'clock in the evening, and Reshigi Daiichi and Reshigi Violet have called a family meeting to take place after dinner.

It is now said time, and the four members of the family are gathered around the table, which is freshly cleared of all signs of their slightly messy meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and collard greens.

Rin and Emi sit beside each other, anxious to know of the reason of their first family meeting in years.

"What do you think's going on," the purple-haired, orange eyed boy whispers to the girl who he's linked hands with under the table.

"I'm not sure. They don't seem anxious or anything, though," the similar-haired, misty-eyed girl replies. She's focused on something on the other side of the room, or maybe not. After a few seconds, she instead closes her eyes; her default setting, actually. She figures it's a waste of fluid and energy to have to keep blinking and lubricating her unseeing eyes, so she instead keeps them shut, which means all of her observations, like this one, are made using her other senses.

The two parents: their idiotic purple-haired, silver-eyed father and the aloof, serious brown-haired, orange-eyed mother are looking at their children with their gazes betraying the fact that they have a very important message to tell them.

Daiichi clears his throat. "Well, it's about time we got this thing started, don't you think?"

Violet nods her head.

__About time, __Rin thinks to himself.

"As the two of you know very well, your mother and I have been ignoring her family, the Ushromiya's request to move back home to be closer to the family and the business. And quite frankly, we've gotten tired of their pestering."

The siblings remain silent. This was certainly not what they expected. "And so, we've decided it's nigh time to head back home to the motherland. To get closer to the business, of course, but mostly so we can stay close to family. I'm sure you guys want to see your half-siblings, don't you?"

Emi nods slowly. "Yeah. I'm...curious to see how Nanime is doing."

Rin flashes a cheeky grin. "And I'm looking forward to seeing my tiny older brother, too." On the surface, this may seem like natural desire for blood to see blood, but it's actually something a bit deeper, at least for Rin.

You see, the purple-haired boy has a few particularly outstanding quirks. One: he's a magical boy, and has been one for the latter part of two years now. And two: he's a time traveler, among other things. The boy, like all of the other time travelers that he knows of besides Akemi Homura, were sent back in time by Nakazawa Hideki to help ensure an agreement least halfway-happy ending at the end of the month, in a showdown with the mega-witch Walpurgisnacht. In order for this to be a happy ending, however, they need as many people to survive as possible; all 12 of them. Last timeline only nine were left by the time we reached Walpurgisnacht, but by the time the battle for humanity against Kriemhild Gretchen came, there were only five of them left.

Obviously that needed to change, so the five of them: Kamijou Kyousuke, Sakura Kyoko, Nakazawa Hideki, Keishoutto Kyousuke and him all went back in order to ensure the survival of themselves and the human race. And as of today, he's pretty sure he's the only one who's been completely isolated from the others, since no matter how far he could have asked Hideki to send him back besides the first three years of his life, he'd still be there in Salem. In the United States, separated from his homeland by the biggest ocean on Earth.

His parents' announcement signifies the end of that. It's nigh time he got to see his siblings again.

"So," Rin starts, "when are we leaving?"

Violet holds up a two, and Daiichi says, "two weeks. You two ought to get packing."

* * *

__Two days later...__

Miki Sayaka was being her. Like always, and that's how it should be.

However, this might actually be one of the worst times to be herself. Everyone's perpetually on edge because of the serial kidnappings, and since the usual jokesters of the class: honor student Miyagi Hajime, teacher's pet and literary genius Nakazawa Hideki, and in some cases even the extremely perverted (less accurate as of late) artistic genius Keishoutto "Kyou/Erosuke" Kyousuke aren't present yet, along the rough though hilarious transfer student Sakura Kyoko being kidnapped it's now up to her, the last line of comedic defense to loosen up the class. And in fulfilling this obligation, she's doing something incredibly dangerous. To put it simply, she's playing a game of keep away with Madoka. The only problem is the thing she's trying to keep away from her. It happens to be an item with a potential for fatality almost equal to its commonness.

These items are called scissors. And we're not talking about safety scissors; we're talking full-blown adult scissors with 9-inch blades. What such a small girl as Madoka was doing with scissors this large, Sayaka did not know, and frankly the thought never crossed her mind, since her main priority is to dispel all of the miasma suffocating the room's students. However, as such with such large scissors, if you were to get hit with these it's going to be a lot more than a flesh wound.

Now take what you know about these utensils, and tack on the fact that this girl, without a care in the world, is ducking around the classroom to keep it away from the pink-haired thirteen year-old with no regard to the inherent danger she's posing to everyone in the classroom. And as such, everyone is pressed up as far as they can against the walls of the classroom; another risky action since the walls are made of glass.

Of course, given the pattern of her life so far, there's nothing to worry about. Every time the blue-haired girl was in a potentially life-threatening situation, no matter how many cumulative risks were piled up on each other, she and everyone else involved would come out with the most extensive of injuries being a mere scratch. Why should things be any different now?

She dangles the scissors in front of her. "Come on, Madoka! Are you really sure you want these back? You don't seem like you're trying very hard."

The pinkette pouts. "Sayaka-chan," she whines, and then both girls jump in surprise as a certain green-haired rich girl seemingly appears out of thin air in between them, focused on Sayaka and the pink-handled scissors.

"Sayaka-chan...to think you'd be the one to make Madoka-chan whine like this..." She holds up a fist that seems to be radiating malicious intent. "Looks like I'll have to punish you."

Sayaka gulps, and Hitomi steps forward slowly, menacingly. Enough to make the bluenette's heart stop beating in terror.

Hitomi takes another step forward, and Sayaka takes a shaky step backwards. Then another, and another, until Sayaka had had enough and turns tail, running towards the door.

Meanwhile, a certain effeminate magical boy makes his way up the stairs, feeling less than cheery at the moment. And for every step he proceeds up the stairs, the deeper his malaise becomes. It's gotten to the point that his soul gem has actually started to gradually darken, and at the rate things are going he's going to have to purify it halfway through the school day.

He reaches the top of the stairs and sighs. He still has to make it all the way down the hallway to class 2-C, and he's definitely not feeling up to the task.

As he nears the room, his sense of malaise deepens as a result of his ability. Something is troubling his classmates besides the kidnapper, and whatever it is it's close.

For a second, he's curious, but that's quickly overshadowed by his depression. Instead of going the classroom to figure out what's wrong, he instead resigns himself to join the class in their anxiety.

Miki Sayaka, a girl using her body's built in fight or flight response to react to the terribly frightening Shizuki Hitomi, and Keishoutto Kyousuke, a depressed boy coming to school just for the sake of not being marked tardy, meet at the doorway, and the two of them tumble and slam into a separator parting two of the glass wall panes, making a notable dent and shaking the whole school's rather flimsy foundation to its core.

Sayaka pushes herself off of the ponytail-clad boy and rubs her head. "Ouchie...Oh, it's Erosuke." She looks at the boy with some concern. It's mostly disgust, but there's a _tad_ of concern in there too for the unmoving boy. When he doesn't respond, she waves her hand in his face and says, "Hey. Earth to Kyou. You alive down there?"

He stirs, if only slightly.

Sayaka sighs in exasperation. "Oh come on! It couldn't have hurt that bad," she says and hoists the boy up by his armpits.

She holds him up at arm's length as he hangs limply there for more time.

__What's up with him, __Sayaka wonders. She doesn't think she really hit him that hard, though she guesses that it may have been the collision with the metal support that's responsible for his lack of a response.

She sees his eyes open from under his bangs, looking straight at her with an eerie lack of emotion. She probably reacts a bit more than she should have, considering she completely drops him in surprise.

Kyou pushes himself up off of the ground with very slow movements, reminding her a bit of a zombie, and looks up her again. "That...freaking...hurt..." He mutters and bends down to pick up his bag, which is at her feet.

"No, no, I'll get it," she insists, and bends down as well.

But she freezes as she notices something on the ground in under him.

There's a deep-red puddle beginning to form under him, dripping from probably his stomach.

She dismisses it, thinking of it as Kyou regressing back into his infamous pervertedness. __He's probably just plotting to make me feel bad so I'll have to listen to his commands or something.__

She stands up again and backs up from him, trying to determine how this particular prank will turn out. __He'll probably say something about me having stabbed him because I was running with scissors and make me serve him or something to make up for it.__

__But wait...that wouldn't work, __she reasserts, __because he'd have to have these scissors...__

She looks down into her hand where the scissors are..._not_. She searches the floor for the utensils and finds them nowhere, so she looks up to Kyou to see if he has them. And, sure enough, he does, she sees as the boy stands up with his bag in hand.

The problem, however, is just where he has them.

Protruding from the boy's stomach, the cloth on his shirt already soaked in blood and dripping down to his pants are the pink-handled scissors.

Kyou looks up and sees her starting at something on his body. "What? Do I have a stain on my shirt or something?"

She doesn't answer, so he follows her eyes and lands on the object protruding from his stomach.

Hitomi, Madoka, and Kyousuke finally step out of the classroom, responding to the racket that was coming from the hallway. They know Sayaka and Kyou ran into each other; that much they could see since the walls are transparent, but what they saw when they got a different angle leaves then in a state of pure distress.

Hitomi stands there with her mouth agape. Sayaka and Madoka also stand there, but the two of them are frozen with shock. Kyou, who's just staring at the affliction, looks torn on whether to freak out or just hope he's imagining things, and Kyousuke, upon seeing the injury, moves forward uneasily to try and help the boy.

"Uh...I'll go and get the nurse," Madoka says with a shaky voice.

"I-I will too," Hitomi says with an equal lack of composure. "We'll be right back."

Kyousuke puts his hand on his childhood friend's shoulder and helps him sit down. He knows that any magical individual can heal something like that with ease, but he also knows that it has to hurt.

He sees the boy gripping his pants legs so tight his knuckles are white, and he's biting his lip so hard he's started bleeding from yet another place.

Sayaka sits back on her haunches and watches the boy trying to take his mind off of the pain.

Her eyes fall on the offending pair of scissors and she grimaces. __It's probably not helping him at all to have that still stuck inside him__, she thinks. __It's probably dirty, too.__

She starts to reach for the utensils, but stops halfway. __No, that would be more dangerous. If I take it out, that will let more bacteria get into the wound...__

She resolves to sit there for fear of making things worse. "Kyou...I'm sorry..."

He stops picking at the bite on his lip with his teeth and looks at her. "Don't worry about it," he says, making obvious effort to let as little of his pain leak into his voice.

"But...aren't you mad at me, or something? People just don't get stabbed and not hate the person for it. That kind of thing only happens in manga and stuff."

"Relax. It was an accident, so its fine." However, despite his kind words, he was speaking through gritted teeth, leading her to think that what he said wasn't really the truth.

Regardless, she chooses not to push it. If she does, he might actually display some anger and the last place she wanted to be was on the receiving end of it.

Kyousuke speaks up. "Seriously, Sayaka, calm down. You said yourself that Kyou-kun was one tough cookie, right? Something like this won't put him out for long."

She tilts her head to the side. She was tempted to point out that she hadn't quite phrased it like that, but that was beside the point. "This is different, Kyousuke-kun. Hitomi and I inflict blunt trauma on him. What he has now is a stab wound. A puncture wound; something he's not resistant against."

He was tempted to say "You think so?" or something else of the sort. After all, the purple-haired boy _was _on his third life.

Yes, he died twice in the last timeline. Kyousuke knows that he was stabbed by a familiar before he contracted, and also he had been revived by his sister when she had contracted. Or at least, that's what he was told. Kyou himself said that when he asked Nanime what had happened the answer she gave was a bit hazy.

As for the second time...everyone just took his word for it, since he wouldn't go into detail about it. Hideki seems to know, too, but he won't tell anyone, either.

Plus, if you add to all of the injuries he suffered fighting witches, it's safe to say that he's no stranger to this kind of thing.

However, since the only thing in his thought-to-speech queue was the thing he was tempted to say and he hadn't cleared the list in time, it came out with extreme prejudice.

Sayaka's gaze focuses on him in curiosity. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He silently curses himself for the slip-up. "Nothing." He turns and looks down the way Madoka and Hitomi went to get the nurse Kaibashi Izuko-sensei, and begins tapping his foot in impatience. "Just where are they?"

Kyou taps on Kyousuke's shoulder, and beckons for him to to come closer.

Sayaka's curiosity hits an all-time high, yet she respects the boys' privacy and instead look in the direction that Saotome-sensei comes from to get to the classroom, and sees none other than their romantically unfortunate teacher herself. Sayaka reaches her just as soon as she turns the corner.

"Saotome-sensei, Saotome-sensei!" Sayaka didn't know quite what would be done if she told her, but she couldn't just _not_. That would be irresponsible (not that she was quite one to talk about irresponsible) and it wouldn't feel right. Besides, maybe things would move faster if she brought someone else into the mix.

"What is it, Miki-san," she asks.

"You see...um..." Geez, how was she supposed to say this? She might look at her differently after finding out...

She clenches her fists to dispel those thoughts. Now was not the time to think about herself. "Don't freak out, Saotome-sensei, but accidentally I stabbed Kyou."

She blinks once, twice, then her eyes widen. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

"I...I stabbed Kyou. On accident." She turns around and point at him. "He's—"

She's stopped short as she realized that she hadn't pointed at anything but a puddle of blood and a similarly-bloodied pair of pink scissors.

* * *

Each step was beginning to feel worse and worse. But he was working on that.

The recently severely-injured purple-haired boy hobbles down the hallway using a certain violinist as his support. Kyou holds his somewhat-polluted soul gem near his wound to heal it, doing his best to cover up any sign of injury to any of the increasingly sparse passersby. However, the healing process is moving a bit slower than usual.

He looks down at his gem, taking note of just how dark his gem is. His soul gem, when completely purified, is a white color of equal purity. As it becomes more polluted, the color gets murkier and murkier. He ranks his pollution like this: white to light gray is light pollution, light gray to dark gray is mild pollution, and dark gray to black is heavy pollution. Right now, it's only mildly polluted, but that's still a lot compared to how it was when he last checked before the school gates. While it was still getting steadily darker back then and was only slightly polluted, the rate at which it darkens seems to have spiked since then.

He stops healing temporarily to purify his gem some, drawing the negativity out from it and letting it disseminate into the environment around them.

The bell rings a few moments later, signaling the beginning of the school day and drastically reducing the chance of someone seeing them as he healed. A student covered in blood would be destined to be given more than a few questioning looks.

Satisfied with the new glow in his soul gem, he resumes healing his wound, and is even more satisfied to find his usual healing speed has been recovered as well.

Kyousuke ventures a peek behind them, a certain bluenette not showing herself in the least. He has to apologize to her for bailing on her, he reminds himself, and sets that aside for after he's assisted the effeminate teen beside him. "You know, we were incredibly lucky that Saotome-sensei showed up when she did," he points out. "It gave us the perfect distraction to get out of there."

"She did, didn't she?" He grimaces as he feels just how heavy his socks are, courtesy of the blood that ran down his body from his wound. Looks like those socks are now useless, and he's going to have to get a new pair of shoes. Oh, how he's going to enjoy watching his wallet go short a few bills. "I guess we'll have to thank her then, in some shape or form."

Kyousuke nods and turns right, Kyou following on his heels.

The walk in silence, the only sounds they hear being their footsteps, the purplette's pained breathing, the dripping of the blood on the floor, among other things. Now it probably isn't accurate to call it 'silence', so the sentence can be revised to say that they didn't speak.

"That was torture, though," Kyou says, breaking the silence. "Being in so much pain, with a way to alleviate it, and not being able to do that because of some stupid confidentiality rules."

The violinist shrugs. "That's just how things happen to go. You can't just tell anybody that you've sold your soul and can do pretty much do the impossible."

He looks sidelong at the taller boy. "It would be fine if we just told Sayaka, right?"

Kyousuke's face gets really serious all of a sudden. "No. Not even her."

He cocks his head to the side in curiosity. "Why not?"

"Because if I can help it, I don't want her to get involved with magic. Not Sayaka, not Kaname-san, not Shizuki-san, not the class rep, not anyone else. The less involved they are with magic, the better."

"That makes sense," Kyou agrees. "I guess it was better not to tell her."

The two of them descend the flight of steps and by the time they reach the bottom of the steps, Kyou's done with his self-remedying. "And...that should do it," he says as he switches his gem to its dormant form and puts it back around his neck. As he does that, however, he realizes something: that he was blindly following Kyousuke down the steps without a single thought as to why it was happening. He probably did that because the pain from his stab wound did a bit to derail his thought process.

He turns towards Kyousuke. "Hey, Kyousuke."

"Hmm?"

"Where are we going?"

He looks at him as if he were an idiot, and then voices it. "_You're_ going _home_. You can't just show back up to school after being stabbed, especially if you share a class with people that are aware of this. Not to mention Saotome-sensei and Kaibashi-sensei both know, too."

"Ah, there is that fact, isn't it?" Another valid point from the most level-headed of the trio of him, Kyou, and Hideki.

Kyousuke pushes him in the back. "Now get going. I'll come up with a lie so they don't call the authorities, if they haven't already."

He nods and says his thanks and begins his walk out of the door, but remembers something yet again from five days ago, the slightly-significant day of Saturday the twenty-first, which prompts him to be curious as to how bad his memory actually is. He turns back and catches Kyousuke halfway up the stairs. "Oi, Kyousuke, one question before I leave."

He turns to look down at the boy to respond to his query. "What is it?"

"You see, on Saturday Hideki told me that you and Obito were moving at like, a million times the speed of light or something like that during your sparring session. Is that true?"

Kyousuke's eyes almost bug out of their sockets. "What? Did he really tell you that?"

He nods, and he facepalms. "Of course it's not true! I'm lucky to be able to hit Mach 6 on a good day. I'm nowhere near the speed of light yet. Though that might not be that much of a stretch for Obito..."

It was here that Kyou finally realized something about Nakazawa Hideki that he should have realized about him when he first met him last school year. And that realization was this:

He's an ass.

* * *

_Meanwhile, at the Nakazawa residence..._

Literary Genius Nakazawa Hideki doesn't like school. Not in the slightest. Mostly because it's repetitive since he's no stranger to time travel. However, he does enjoy being with his friends, so he goes anyway.

Except for today. Last night he happened to see a flier for a college baseball game hosted in Mitakihara on March third, and that flier struck him with a wonderful idea.

And as such, having had an inspiration, he started writing in the wee hours of the night, a mere thirty minutes after he was struck with the idea, and finished it at around quarter-after four. In the morning. It hadn't taken him very long to write it; maybe around thirty minutes itself since it wasn't very big, but one must always review and revise their work before creating the final draft, so after sleeping on it for a few hours he woke up at 8:20, the precise time that school starts, and started on that, which brings us to present-time.

Now, you may be wondering what exactly 'it' is. Well it's quite simple, really, as it is an essential component of pastime of those living in Elizabethan England, or even modern New York. In fact, one might say that that pastime _is _this unnamed thing.

And this thing is a script.

Yes, that's right. Nakazawa Hideki is a genius author, despite his goofy personality unfitting to the literary archetype. More specifically, the type of author he is is a playwright. It should also be noted that the uncle that he has taken up residence with, Nakazawa Hideo, is an author as well. In fact, he's the mastermind behind the famous (or in some cases, the _infamous_) Puella Magi Meduka Meguca.

But anyway, the reveal that he is writing a script raises another question: a script for what?

Another simple answer: a script to make Kyou take a bet...and lose.

Why would he do that, you ask? Well that's because he wants to. He is, for lack of a better word, a gadfly, one who does things they don't necessarily mean or intend with ill-will just to get a reaction, however this time he has an actual, concrete reason to do this. The thing he wants to do is try to convince Kyou to make a losing bet so that he can make Kyou do something embarrassing on the following Wednesday, the day after the game, to raise the class's spirits. Sure, Kyou's pride as a man may be damaged afterward, but it is a necessary sacrifice to realize this noble goal.

Said embarrassing thing is going to be cross-dressing, and, even though Hideki knows that his pride won't allow him to simply back out of it, he has an added incentive to coax him into following through: a video of one of his and Nanime's incestuous endeavors.

This script, though by this point it is more accurate to call it a 'plot', is fairly easy to create because there are one: only a few variables in place: Kyou's resolve to finish what he started and the chance that the obviously less-skilled team will somehow come out on top, and two: only the two of them involved. As he took care of the first variable with the aforementioned video, the only thing left to address is the latter, and seeing that he can just take care of that with his ability to see into all possible futures, the plan is set to go on without a hitch.

However, in the miraculous event that it does fail, he has an equally humiliating punishment for himself to lift the class's spirits, making whatever outcome turn out in his favor as the goal is still accomplished. Call him a student of the art of Xanatos gambits.

His script is still imperfect, though, which is why he's spending this time during which he should be in school poring over it on his desk in his near-barren bedroom to revise it. However, since he already has the setting, time and date, etc., the only thing that really requires revision is the convincing of him to take the bet. Which means he has to further orchestrate the conversation to appeal to quite an endearing part of Kyou: his weakness to underdog stories. Whenever the odds are stacked against any side, he will always find himself rooting for the losing team, a trait that is so, so very easy to exploit.

He spends the next twenty or so minutes fine-tuning their future conversation, and looks at the clock on his nightstand, reading eight forty-six.

_Ah. By this time Kyou should have found out that I was lying about Obito and Kyousuke's speed during their sparring session on Saturday._

Believe it or not, a plan like this was already in the works by that last Saturday, but was scrapped due to its unnecessary convolution. However that didn't mean that he had to scrap _all _of it, since that would mean all of his hard work would be wasted, and so he used the very first part of that plan, and now here it is, working in his favor. But that development that should have just happened should have made Kyou want to get him back in some shape or form for duping him, something that may end up as not being just a wasted effort on his part. In fact, that may just end up being the catalyst for Kyou taking the bet, to humiliate him for tricking him on Saturday. All of that extra coaxing in the resulting conversation might not be necessary now.

He sighs in satisfaction as he stacks the hefty pile of papers on top of each other and realizes that to a normal person, the amount of detail in his plots, namely how these planned conversations list every possible direction and replies on both sides down to the letter, are either too thorough to be considered human or too focused for him to be truly sane. To which he would reply that this is simply the will of a writer. Nothing more, nothing less. He just takes it a bit more seriously than others.

He assumes the Gendo pose and puts a sly grin onto his face. "Oh, this is going to be _sooo_ awesome."

* * *

Kyou, after having been kicked out of the house by his mom after changing out of his bloodstained clothes decides to come to the only place he can think of: the Sakura church, and as he enters the door he sees a large glowing mint-green kanji for eight at the podium, the symbol of Hachibey and sign that his magic is active. And the only magic that the Incubator uses that shows that symbol is his pocket reality construction. Normal humans can't see it, and unwelcome magical girls or boys are not permitted entrance, so it's a pretty secure mechanism, too.

He walks up to the podium and pulls out his soul gem, holding it up to the insignia and both things start glowing, and stay like that for a few moments, a sign that Hachibey is identifying the person requesting entrance and making calculations to include them in the world. After a few seconds, the world around him steadily enters a metamorphosis into the barren wasteland he's so familiar with, and as the environment fades in so do the noises of battle.

In a blue, gold, and white skintight body suit with futuristic running shoes and goggles is Omincharao Obito, holding a Beretta in one hand and his magical weapon, a sickle, in the other. Kyou should point out that this is this boy's magical uniform, and may be the most ridiculous one he has seen so far, besides Kyousuke's own with his musketeer hat.

He charges forward at the nearest pseudo-familiar, fashioned after a little girl's silhouette and after a series of blurs the monster screams and falls apart in thin slices. Two others charge at him and he appears behind them and fires in rapid succession at their heads, blowing them apart, then he lays down his weapons and grabs two others that charged at him by the face, and after a second of stillness on their part they explode.

Four others attack from different directions, so he picks up his weapons, slices one in half, conjures his other sickle and spins around to throw it at the one opposite, hitting it in the head, then he draws his other Beretta and fires simultaneously at the remaining two.

The real kicker about this one was not the skill, but the _speed_. The entire exchange that Kyou was witness to took the whole of seven seconds. And, as such, Kyou finds out that he has an inferiority complex.

_I know he's fast, and I know this isn't even close to just how fast he can go, but...sheesh. And just how did he make them explode at the end? All he did was touch them..._

As Kyou ponders over the ten year-old's strength, Obito powers down and sits down on a bench that just sort of _pops_ out of the ground and fixes his shoes.

"_Particle acceleration," _Hachibey says, and Kyou looks inquisitively at the mint-green alien.

"Huh?"

"_That's how they exploded at the end. By holding direct contact with them as he vibrates his own hand at supersonic speeds, he can cause the particles within the familiar to speed up to the point of going haywire and losing all stability, hence their explosion."_

Ah. _I would hate to see what that can do to a person..._

"So," Obito starts, directing his speech at the Incubator as he walks toward us, "Did I get any better, Hachibey?"

The Incubator lays down on the ground in between us, facing him and says, _"I assume you're talking about pure combat ability, since you didn't even move at a sixty-fourth of your full speed."_

Obito nods while Kyou simply lets his jaw fall to the ground. _A sixty-fourth?_

"_Well, I can't say you've gotten much better, but you did improve a bit on your execution. However, the number of unnecessary motions you make and risks you take could prove problematic against an experienced opponent. You would do well not to just lay down your weapons like that and use your hands unless they've been knocked out of your hands. Otherwise, if you really need to use hand-to-hand, sheathe them instead of laying them down. It will save you the unnecessary motion to retrieve them when you need them."_

"Hey, Obito."

The boy shifts his gaze from the Incubator to Kyou, the one that called out to him. "Yes?"

"Are you, uh, trying to get stronger or something like that?"

He looks at me with a bright expression. "Of course! Why do you ask?"

"No reason, really. It just seems to me like you're already strong enough," he says and fiddles with his ponytail. He knows he shouldn't really ask this, since it may be a bit personal, but his curiosity manages to get the better of his manners. "If you don't mind me asking, do you have any particular reason why you want to become stronger?"

Obito's silent for a moment as he puts a hand on his chin, then he smiles and runs a hand through his hair. "Hehe, that's weird. I can't remember the reason. But I just...feel like I should, I guess. I'm sure it'll come back to me once I actually get as strong as I want to be."

Kyou looks away as he knows why the boy doesn't remember. He really feels like he shouldn't have asked now.

He wracks his brain for something to change the conversation to, and he says the first thing that comes to his mind.

"So...who wants to talk about kidnappings?" Right after he says it, he mentally punches himself in the face. _Why would I say that? This topic is just as uncomfortable as the last one!_

"Oh, oh, that reminds me," Obito says, crouching down to pick up the Incubator. "The kidnapper has been nabbing a bunch of little girls, right? Do you think he'll go after Shouko, too?"

And now he mentally shoots himself. Somehow he managed to make this one even worse than the last one.

"_Unlikely. __The kidnapper seems to be targeting magical girls, so unless you've changed your mind and though about letting her contract, she's should be safe."_

Obito lets out a sigh of relief and lets the alien climb onto his head, and Kyou decides to take this conversation into another direction, one that has only come up with one group of people, and that's with the magic-mundane bridge in the police force, Kobayashi Katsuo and his father: potential targets. While the police investigation was fruitless, as was explained to Kyou by Katsuo, the Preventers and their magical resources may be able to be more successful.

Kyou voices this. "Speaking of that, Hachibey, who do you think the next target will be? My mom is the only magical girl, or should I say magical woman left in the city now, since she's, well, thirty-two, but she doesn't quite fit the age group."

Hachibey doesn't answer for a moment, only blinks his magenta eyes and flicks his tail, then says, _"Well, in the event we can rule out your mother and any Preventers, looking at the criteria for the current victims, we can only assume that he will start going after potential magical girl candidates. The candidates in the city are Kaname Madoka, Miki Sayaka, Momoe Nagisa, your sister, and Akemi Homura."_

Two things stood out to him in that list: the presence of a girl he didn't know, and Akemi Homura's name, who, by his knowledge, is already a magical girl, however the persona he's familiar with isn't with them in this timeline yet; she's supposed to show up on March sixteenth, according to Hideki. "Wait, wait, wait. I thought Homura-san was a magical girl already."

"_No. Prior to the arrival of the version you are familiar with, this girl is still confined in the hospital, meaning she has not yet met her reason to contract. As such, she is a normal girl, until the version you're familiar with arrives to take this one's place."_

"O-oh...I didn't really think about it before, but I guess it makes sense." Hachibey flicks his tail again in response and starts licking his fur while still positioned on Obito's head.

"Hm...now I have another question, Hachibey," Obito says, and takes the Incubator off of his head and place him back in his arms.

"_What is it?"_

"Would it be possible for the kidnapper to use a lure? Someone held only to draw out one of the girls he's targeting?"

If there was any train of thought in Kyou or Hachibey's brain at the time, they were derailed with extreme prejudice.

"O-of course! Why didn't we think of that sooner," Kyou exclaims, excited that they're getting somewhere.

"_If we factor that in, and revoke our exclusion of Preventers for possible victims, considering that Nakazawa-san was targeted as well when Maria was captured, we can figure out who's most likely to be lured, and who it's directed at."_

Obito looks between the two of them, then flashes another bright smile to himself, feeling slightly proud that he could help out like that.

"Hachibey, can you deduce that right now?"

"_Already done," _the Incubator says and then leaps down from Obito's arms to look at the two of them. _"The most likely bait within the current victims would be Sakura Kyoko and Akatsuki Maria, those two being bait for Miki Sayaka and Nakazawa-san, respectively."_

"Assuming Sayaka contracts, right?"

He waves his tail back and forth. _"Yes, but in Kyoko's case she's bait on two fronts. Her first role as bait would be possibly to make Miki Sayaka contract in an effort to get her back, and then in the event she does, her role changes to lure her into an area for the kidnapper to __swoop in and snatch her__._

_Furthermore, there is also bait amongst possible victims. Keishoutto-san, your sister and even Shouko can be used for bait for you and Omincharao-san, and in the event that Miki Sayaka gets captured Kamijou-san won't hesitate to try in save her, much like another Kamijou from a certain light novel, except our Kamijou-san is more likely to fail."_

_Way to have faith in him, _Kyou thinks and then looks at his watch, it reading twelve thirty.

"We need to tell the others, Hachibey, but they don't get out of school for another two and a half hours. Do you want to meet up at my house when school lets out to tell them?"

"_Sure," _he says, and looks at Obito. _"You come too. Also, Keishoutto-san, bring those police friends of yours as well. I'm sure those two Kobayashis would like to know and have something to report back to the force."_

"Sounds like a plan," Kyou says, and turns to the door, before realizing something.

"What am I going to do until then?"

* * *

_Three thirty..._

After heading to an arcade to kill time, Kyou decided to head finally to his house ten or so minutes before school was let out. He had just sent messages to Kyousuke, Hideki, and Katsuo telling them to meet at his house after school, making sure to inform the latter to bring his dad with him, when he noticed his mother standing in front of the door of his house looking very, _very_ unhappy.

He gulps. Whatever he did, he was going to catch hell for it. "H-hey, Mom."

"'Hey', my ass! What are you doing here?"

"H-huh?" He was pretty sure he lived here in this house with her, unless he did something warranting being disowned by her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what are you doing _here_?" She points down at the ground in front of her before pointing into the distance. "Just because you decided to ditch school doesn't mean she did, too! Carry your lazy ass up to the school and pick her up!"

Here is when Kyou realized that he is a terrible brother for forgetting that his sister needs an escort.

However, he realizes this is false, as she would have the protection of at least Hideki since he told them in the message that they need to get there as soon as possible.

But, just to be safe, he pulls out his phone to call her.

It doesn't even go through a full ring before Nanime picks up.

"ONIIIIIIIII-CHANNNNN!" She yells through the phone, blowing his eardrums to kingdom come. "WHERE ARE YOUUUUU?"

"At home," he says, or at least he thinks he says, as he can no longer hear anything without it being insanely loud. Regardless he keeps it what he thinks is a moderate level to most people, so he doesn't look like a fool yelling into the phone. "Is there anyone there with you?"

"Nakazawa-kun is here...but I want you here, too!" She yells, also at a more moderate (albeit still loud) volume.

He sighs. "Relax. Just walk with him until you get back here—" Kyou's eyes and his mom's nearly bug out of their sockets when through a lavender-colored portal comes Nanime, who is soon followed by Hideki, who's dressed in casual clothing.

He waves to Kyou and his mom. "Hey. I heard what happened to you so I took it upon myself to pick her up."

Kyou hangs up his phone and sighs again. "Weren't you the one berating us last timeline about using magic in public," Kyou asks, pointing at him however his finger is almost broken as Nanime launches herself at him.

Her voice is muffled as she buries her face in his chest, holding him in a death grip that would put even the beefiest of men to shame. He's pretty sure she's saying his name, but he can't quite register it as he's starting to lose oxygen to his brain.

He taps on her head and says, "Nanime...can't...breathe..."

She lessens her force so that he's just barely able to breathe, and Nakazawa says, "I can use magic whenever I want to because I'm leader of the Preventers by experience, and leaders are allowed to be hypocrites."

He takes a second to recover the breath that his little sister squeezed out of him. "That's bullsh—" He's interrupted again as his sister squeezes him with twice the force that she was just employing, and he could swear he felt a rib crack.

"No! No profanity," she commands, looking up at him with a strange fire in her eyes.

He nods frantically and Nanime, satisfied with his reaction, returns to a more mundane force.

"I don't mind you being here, Nakazawa-kun," his mom says, "but why is it that you're here in the first place?"

Hideki looks at him. "I don't know. Kyou called me here."

Yukiko crosses her arms and turns to Kyou. "So are you going to tell me or not?"

Now, Kyou wants to save himself the trouble of having to repeat his purpose for gathering them there to each person that shows up, but his mother doesn't look like she has much patience at the moment. But then again, he supposes he could summarize it in four words.

"It's about the kidnappings."

It looks like that was enough information for them, since they stop fooling around. Nanime, however, instead jumps on his back so as to prevent any separation.

"I take it you found something out then," Hideki says.

"Right on the money. I decided to do it here since it might be nice for Mom to know, too."

"So who else did you tell to come," Yukiko asks, and Kyou tells her who.

"That's what, eight people plus an alien? Will everyone fit in our house, Nii-san," Nanime asks.

"Hey! Our house may be a bit on the small side, but it's not _that_ small."

They hear footsteps and turn simultaneously towards the source: Katsuo and his father. "Yo," his father says as they walk up, dressed up in a suit with his badge on his chest. Katsuo beside him is dressed in Mitakihara Middle School's uniform with his laptop tucked under his arm. And he cannot stress any more that that boy and his father look like twins.

"What's up, Erosuke-sam—"

Kyou holds up a hand. "Ah, none of that. Say my actual name."

"Kyou."

"Good. Now say it again."

"Kyou."

"One more ti—"

He feels a smack on the back of his head and turns around to see his mom looking irked. "Focus. You two were so busy flirting that the rest of the group showed up." She points at a place behind him and the remaining of the invitees, Kyousuke, Obito, and Hachibey, and the three of them show off their own greetings.

Kyou claps his hands. "Well, since we're all here, let's get started."

* * *

After everyone got situated in his living room, Kyou, Hachibey, and a little bit of Obito told them all to save their questions for later and explained it all to them, including who was most likely to take the bait.

That was where problem number one emerged.

"I'm not even going to lie to myself; I would take the bait, hook, and sinker if Sayaka-chan was captured," Kyousuke voices, taking a sip of his tea and resting his chin on his hands.

Kyousuke and Obito themselves also were completely honest in saying that if their sisters were snatched, they would bite as well, with Yukiko supporting it completely should Nanime be captured. Kyou did look at Obito strangely when he said that, since to everyone else's standpoint there is no-one that he would be going to rescue, but he chose not to say anything.

However, a certain literary prodigy says something that rubs a good chunk of the room the wrong way.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me going after Maria. It would be a waste of time, anyway," the dark-brown haired boy says indifferently.

The room is silent as tensions start to rise, all directed towards that boy. Something that gave Kyou a sharp headache.

"Hideki," Kyousuke starts, clenching his fists and looking at the boy sitting next to him, "did you hear what you just said?"

"Yeah, Nakazawa-kun, I know you can be a jerkass sometimes, as evident by how you trick my son all of the time, but now you just made yourself out as heartless," Yukiko adds as she cracks her knuckles.

He scans the room, looking at all the expressions that are slowly becoming more hostile. He sighs and scratches his cheek. "It looks like the way I said that may have thrown you all off. My apologies." He stands up and stretches, walking towards the edge of the sofa and leaning on it, the edge closest to the door. "However, it would just be a waste to worry about Maria, or any of the other captives for tha—"

"What the hell, Hideki!" Kyousuke stands up, knocking against the coffee table and spilling half of the drinks on it. Yet if it bothered him him he doesn't show it in the least; he's too busy staring daggers at Hideki. "How can you say that?"

Hideki returns the glare; a clear sign of Hideki's dislike of being interrupted, and the whole room begins to shrink in the presence of such tension, including the veteran Keishoutto Yukiko.

"Can I finish? Are you going to let me finish, Kyousuke?" When he doesn't say anything, he continues. "Thank you." He runs his hand through his hair and begins his explanation. "Now, I said that for a reason. Considering the fact that was brought up while Kyou, Obito, and Hachibey were explaining all of this," he looks at the three of us seated in front of everyone else, "the fact that the kidnapper only tried to incapacitate Maria and I, not harm us seriously, leads me to believe that even if the victims were kidnapped they won't be in any worse condition than when they were captured."

It's Nanime's turn to speak up, though somehow she seems very small beside the normally-composed Kyousuke. "But would it hurt to show just a little bit of concern?"

He looks sidelong at her. "No, it doesn't hurt to show a little. In fact, I already did. When Maria first got captured. However I then analyzed the situation, and realized that there's nothing to worry about."

Katsuo's father adjusts his collar. "He's right. No matter how you look at it, it _is_ rational, no matter how tactless it was." Katsuo himself nods and continues type away on his laptop.

"I already apologized for it; what else do you suggest I do," he asks.

His father holds up his hands. "Hey, I've got nothing. I just think we should move on."

Obito looks at him. "To what, Kobayashi-san? What else is there?"

He points to his son, who says "Translating the story to something the police can understand and believe," and continues typing. "But Dad and I will take care of that; you guys have done enough." He closes his laptop and rises from his seat, finishing off his tea and taking up his father's empty cup, courtesy of Kyousuke's rage earlier, and going to put them in Kyou's sink.

His father claps his hands and stands up as well. "Well, then. We will see ourselves out." He meets up with Katsuo at the door and says, "Thank you again for having us, Yukiko-chan."

Yukiko grimaces. "Please don't address me so familiarly, _Yuuga_." She practically spits out the name, however she smiles warmly at him and waves. "See you."

"Yeah, see you later." And with that, the father-son pair vacates the building.

They all sit in silence, waiting for someone to say something, until Kyou stands up. "Well, uh, I'm pretty much done, so I guess you guys can go on and leave. You won't miss anything."

He collects all of the empty tea cups and takes them to the sink, then finds himself collapsing against the sink. The tension in the room was slowly wearing down at him, to the point that he's now a nervous mess. Not to mention that headache of his is something legendary.

"Sheesh. And it was all going so well until that thing with Hideki...giving me this migraine, too, and worrying my sister...damn it." He goes to the medicine cabinet and pulls out a bottle of Tylenol, popping four pills into his mouth dry without regard to the dosage. "Though I guess I have the kidnapper to thank for that. If I ever find him, I'm going to force him to pay me for every pill I've had to take because of him." He realizes that he may have just found another reason to find the kidnapper: so he doesn't run through those extra-strength bottles every other week. And yes, he _is _doing the math right, as he's pretty sure his body's ascension into superhuman status puts a damper on the effects of any medication, so he has to take more to get the same effect.

As he hears another argument spark in the next room, he puts his head in his hands, preparing for the wave of pain that's soon to follow. Seriously, he told them they could leave, so why the hell aren't they gone yet?

His inner asshole speaks. _Maybe this timeline is simply designed to make you suffer._

Despite knowing he can brand himself insane if he responds, he does so anyway. _You know what...that doesn't seem so far-fetched._

* * *

_That same evening..._

Kyou had nothing better to do on the cool evening of February twenty-sixth. He wasn't quite tired enough to go to sleep, but he wasn't feeling up to doing anything worthwhile, so he was there laying in bed, staring at the abstract painting that he made at six years old in response to his parents splitting up. He let his feelings flow onto the canvas, and he found it so profound, so full of emotion, and was simply so _proud_ of it that he decided to keep it and mount it on the ceiling, so he could see it every morning as he awoke from his slumber.

Looking at the painting now, however, made him wonder how his father, Reshigi Daiichi, is doing. In the last timeline, his father had a heart-attack and unfortunately died on the twentieth. He feels a bit ashamed that this is the first time he's thought about his father since he showed up in the timeline nine days ago, and he wasn't even mentioned once since he showed up, so he can assume that he's at least alive, but knows nothing of his condition.

Maybe he should ask Mo—

_RIIIIINNNNGGGG!_

His phone interrupts his thought process. He pulls it out his phone and checks the caller ID. It reads off the name of the speculated boyfriend of Saotome-sensei.

"Hey there, Hide—"

"_Kyou-kun, Kyou-kun! Did you hear?" _The boy interrupts him, effectively making himself out to be a hypocrite.

"You know, Hideki, you should really practice what you preach. I don't like being interrupted any more than you do."

"_Can you address that later? I have something to tell you, and I'm afraid I'll forget what it is if we get sidetracked," _he says in a pleading voice.

He sighs. "Fine. What is it?"

"_Next Tuesday Mitakihara's hosting a baseball game between the Yokes and the Seagulls since the Yokes' stadium is being renovated. Do you want to go watch it?"_

Kyou almost glares at the boy through the phone. The Yokes, an undefeated team versus the Seagulls, a newly-formed, mediocre, rookie-filled team that has but one notable player, Hinata Hideki, who was injured nine games ago and still hasn't returned. Unless he returns this game, the match will be two times the slaughter than it would be if he was playing.

He voices his thoughts. "It won't be worth it. The Yokes are going to run them out of the stadium unless Hinata comes back, and even then it's likely to be a massacre. Why do you even want to go?"

He hears hims _'tsk-tsk' _over the phone. _"Because I get the feeling that this game will be a good one. The Seagulls have been steadily improving over these last few games, rallying around the injured Hinata and actually pulling out victories with sheer willpower alone. Plus, it's been confirmed that Hinata will be back by this game." _He coughs and continues. _"I'm a Yoke fan myself, but I think that, contrary to popular belief, __these awakened Seagulls may just possibly pose us a challenge this game."_

_Hmm...an appealing argument, _he thinks, and makes a decision on whether or not to go with him.

"_You know, Kyou-kun, if those Seagulls actually pull out a win, it could be the greatest upset in college baseball history, and possibly one of the most _amazing_ underdog stories since ever."_

_Underdog story..._

_Underdog story..._

_Underdog story..._

The switch has successfully been flipped.

_It could, couldn't it, _he thinks looking down at his hands. _Playing against the odds has its own sort of thrill, and the same goes for cheering. Not to mention the reward feels that much more fulfilling if you actually pull it off..._

"Alright, I'll come," he says hastily into the phone, already feeling very excited for the game.

"_You will? Good, since I already bought the tickets." _He sighs and Kyou could hear a faint scratching in the background, as if the literary prodigy were writing something. _"You know, we should do something to make this more interesting."_

This piques his interest. "And what would that be?"

There's a pause. _"We should bet on the teams. Me for the Yokes, you for the Seagulls."_

"What's at stake?"

"_Hmm...if I win, you have to cross-dress the next day."_

This doesn't even faze Kyou. He's done it plenty of times before, even in his last timeline of his own free will, so he's pretty much immune to it now.

"_And if you win—"_

"I'll decide that for myself, thank you." A grin makes its way onto Kyou's face, it already completely clear that he's going to take the bet, since it's the perfect chance to get him back for duping him on Saturday. You may call it petty, but he doesn't care what he's called as long as long as he can set the record straight. "I hope you have a clown suit, Hideki, because you're going to literally become the class clown if I win."

He hears him chuckle through the phone. _"I take it you've __accepted the bet."_

"Of course I did. Why would I pass up a chance to humiliate you, Hideki?"

"_Valid point. I just pray you don't regret it when the day of reckoning comes," _he says, and then hangs up.

Somewhere on the other side of the city, an evil laugh could be heard throughout a condominium where a certain someone stays.

* * *

Just recently, Miki Sayaka has acquired a stalker. Someone that noticed her sense of justice and infatuation with heroes, knights, and..._pirates_, and sought to use that and her moral standing in their favor.

However, before it could be effectively exploited, they needed to pull some strings. Of course, they really weren't going to be doing anything but letting events play out with a certain kidnapper, but that's a small detail that wasn't going to affect this chain of events in any way.

They focus their eyes on the blue-themed girl, who's gripping a joystick like it's a lifeline and trying to fight her way through Mortal Kombat IX's arcade mode.

A girl's heart, as convoluted as it can be on the surface, is surprisingly simple on the inside, contrary to popular belief. It, as of now, holds a single desire, one that the kidnapper will provide her a chance to fulfill in due time.

This 'stalker's' name is Kyuubey the Incubator and he will be granting a wish very soon.

* * *

**A/N: Finally have some wi-fi, so I can finally post this chapter. Yippee!**

**I decided to do things a little differently this chapter in regard to my writing style. Normally I'm in the first-person present, but this time I decided to try my hand at third-person present. I did it on a whim, but I actually found it to be a lot of fun, so it looks like there will be a lot more of this perspective in future chapters.**

**Also, there are two references in this chapter that I decided to shove in here: one for Toaru Majutsu no Index and one for Angel Beats!. One is blatantly obvious as I pretty much dropped the MC's name in, but the other might be a little harder to pick up on. Kudos to you if you figure the second one out.**

**Oh, and shout out to Qinlongfei for being a very good constructive critic (despite him saying otherwise) and for having a better work ethic than me when it comes to fanfiction, since he undoubtedly has less time on his hands than I do yet updates his fanfic (The Preventers – Daybreak's Bell) at a better rate than me.**

**Anyway, there will be cross-dressing, boobs, Kyoko, and witch-hunting next chapter, so there's a little something to look forward to.**

**Until next time, guys.**


	8. Chapter 7: Exposure

****A/N: Hey, guys.** **S****t****uff happened, preventing me from updating over the summer and much of the 1st quarter of school. All I can really say here is sorry for the delay and enjoy this next chapter****.****

*********cough* ****An****y****way, a**** little something before we begin: e****x****pect to see Kyoko, ****cross-dressing, boobs, witch-hunting, and this time around, not necessarily in that order. ****And ****I'll ****have you know that ****things start picking up from here, ****so look forward to it.****

****Also, I noticed that I didn't put a disclaimer in before now, so here it is: **_**I don't own Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kazumi Magica, or Oriko Magica****.**** The only things I claim ownership of are Nakazawa's first name, his magical boy form as well as Kyousuke's, and any and all of my OCs**_**.****

**Oh, and the above applies to the rest of the fic so I don't have to put it in every chapter. Enjoy.**

**Chapter 7: Exposure**

* * *

_Wednesday, March fourth..._

From the perspective of the world around them, the Keishoutto sisters were walking up to the school gate.

However, from the perspective of those 'sisters', it was really just a very effeminate boy dressed in a girls' Mitakihara Lower Secondary School uniform and his very-much-female sister.

How did this happen, you ask? Well that's because he lost a bet. Yesterday, a college baseball game occurred between one of the worst teams in the college league, the Seagulls, and the number one team, the Yokes. In a serious rally behind the newly-returned Seagull ace Hinata Hideki, the game was miraculously very close most of the time until the ninth inning, when Hinata, during that scorching hot day seemed to have lost focus completely and ruined his team's momentum by not moving an inch when a fly ball was hit his way. One would think that the boy was dead for how he was standing, and how he behaved when he found out what happened.

The final score was twelve to thirteen.

Anyway, after that dramatic loss, Hideki made sure to remind him that he had to cross-dress the next day. He thought about protesting since they didn't sign a contract or anything, but before he could even get out the protest Hideki pulled out a camcorder with a less-than appropriate video of his past self and his sister that sent shudders down his spine. When he threatened to spread it around if he didn't keep to his word he immediately gave and prepared himself for very breezy genitals the next day. Some friend Hideki's turned out to be.

So here he is now, walking to school beside his sister and doing his best to own his current appearance. If he's going to cross-dress he's going to be the best damn cross-dresser there is, to the point that he's going to have even the other dudes swooning for him.

_Wait..._

He stops with his foot halfway across the school's entrance, the realization hitting him like a freight train. The thing he realized? Well...

He falls the ground holding his head in his hands. "I'm in a classroom full of perverts..."

Nanime looks pityingly down at her brother and pats his head. "It's okay, Nii-san. If it comes down to it, just use your powers to scare them away."

He looks up at her with tears welling up in his eyes. "You know I can't do that..." He wails. "I don't want to be eye candy for the other guyyyysssss!"

Nanime offers out a hand. "Come on, Nii-san, it can't be that bad. I don't think the other boys in your class would go after you even if you're acting like what your appearance suggests."

He sighs and feels the headache from all of the accumulated miasma in the area. _You just don't know, Nanime..._

Nanime drags him to the stairs and pushes him forward. "I wish you luck, Nii-san. Come back in one piece, okay?"

"You're not helping." He waves the girl off and ascends the stairs. On his way up, however, he notices the source emotion shift from anxiety to anger, the second-most painful emotion behind despair. The headache intensifies, and he wonders just what it is that everyone's so angry about.

He reaches the top and can see through the walls that there's a ruckus in his classroom.

_Oh, god. What happened this time,_ he thinks as he reaches the door to his classroom. It's then he realizes that both the headache and the ruckus are more intense up close. He'll hear one voice shouting in outrage, then another even more intense one will drown the first one out, and so on. A vicious cycle, if you will.

"...not funny! Why would you—"

"...bastard! How dare yo—"

"...don't care if it was just a joke! That—"

Kyou sighs and rubs his temple. _Whatever this is, it needs to stop now, _he thinks and reaches for the light switch, flicking it on and off until everyone settles down. "Oi. What's the problem?"

Miyagi Hajime/Failurefag points into the crowd, which parts for him and says, "This bastard made Saotome-sensei cry!"

The person he's pointing at in the center of the crowd looks around panicked before locking eyes with Kyou and mouthing '_Save me!'_

Kyou waves him off and goes to his seat, tucking his skirt under him to avoid sitting on the cold seat. "Sorry, Hideki, but you probably deserve it."

"No I don't," he wails. "It was a joke! A joke, I tell you! I wasn't even talking about her; I was talking about Rossweisse from _High School DxD_!"

However, despite the fact that he explained the misunderstanding, the crowd closes around him and the chaos resumes. For good reason, too, since that doesn't change the fact that Saotome-sensei started crying and most likely ran from the room to cover it up.

_Did it occur to you, Hideki, that whatever you say about that teacher can apply to our own?_

He puts his head down on the table and blocks his ears, hoping that it will lessen the headache, even by a small amount. But, as expected, it didn't change a thing. He should really get to finding a way to turn off this certain function of his power.

After a few minutes of him musing to himself, he begins to feel incredibly uncomfortable, as if all eyes were on him.

Looking up, he realizes just that, as well as the fact that the class has gone silent again.

"Um...is there something on my face?"

A tall boy with maroon-colored hair and glasses, Kanamori Rentarou, says, "Besides makeup?"

_Crap. They've finally gotten around to me..._

"You know, Keishoutto-kun, I thought you had changed," says Hajime with a disappointed tone to his voice. Kind of funny, since he was in his position as the class's butt-monkey last timeline.

"But to think you've been tricking us this whole time..." A tan girl with dark-blue hair, Tamura Chiyoko, says.

"I thought you had actually turned over a new leaf...but this...is just disappointing." A girl with glasses and short black hair, class representative Umiharu Shizuka says, and somehow, with her saying it it hits him even harder, what with her genuinely saddened expression and similar tone of voice.

He looks over the crowd and sees pretty much what he expects to see: disappointment, oozing from every pore.

"H-hey, now, I'm not doing this because I want to," he explains. "I lost a bet, that's all..."

"Bullshit," says Fuyudo Yuuta, a boy with black hair with a peek-a-boo haircut. "You just wanted to cross-dress, didn't you?"

"N-no! That's not it!"

He feels a hand grip his collar and hoist him up off of the ground. "I say we lynch him. We dealt with this one's shenanigans for far too long," a deep voice says, belonging to the wavy brown-haired Mizudori Kenji.

And much to his horror, no one objects to this. Not even Hideki, who's grinning like an idiot behind the crowd, probably enjoying the fact that they've pretty much let him off the hook.

As the class parades him down the hallway to the stairs to reach the roof of the building, Kyou came to realize a few things.

One: his headache is gone. That means there's nothing but neutral or positive emotion coming from the class, which is an excellent change of pace. There isn't even any killer intent coming from them, which relieves him to godly levels since that means if he dies today it will just be an accident on their part, not an actual murder.

Two: Hideki's an ass. Sure, he has realized that since a while ago, but he felt like he should put a little emphasis on that fact.

And three: he has the powerful urge to shout the catch phrase of a certain someone from a certain light novel. Something that he just might do despite the copyright laws in place on the phrase.

As they open the door to the roof and light floods the stairway, Kyou decides to go through with the above.

"SUCH MISFORTUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEE!"

* * *

_I've survived yet another day,_ a certain violinist thinks as he packs up his things, responding as one would expect a student to respond to the bell that signals the end of the day.

Kyousuke, despite his musical talent, isn't a part of any music club, or any club at all, much to their disappointment, which officially earned him a spot in the infamous 'Go Home Club' along with his partners in crime Kyou and Hideki. In fact, he should point out that less than half of the class are participating in any extracurricular activities, which gives the class the monikers of 'The Inactive Class', 'Class Inactive', and other similar names, all of which aren't completely accurate.

There are some who don't know which club to join, like his childhood friend Sayaka. She can't decide which of the sport's clubs to join, but those club presidents couldn't really care less since she excels at all of them.

There are some who are already tied up with other things, namely Kyousuke himself and Shizuki Hitomi, who have violin practice and various rich person etiquette ceremonies respectively.

There are those that are actually a part of clubs but don't have the dedication to attend meetings, like Kyou and Hideki, who are part of the Art and Literature Appreciation Clubs, respectively.

And finally, those who just don't feel like joining a club. Namely Miyagi Hajime, Fuyudo Yuuta, and, surprisingly, the class rep Umiharu Shizuka.

Kyousuke zips up his bag and stands up, then looks around for the three girls he appointed himself responsible for: Miki Sayaka, Shizuki Hitomi, and Kaname Madoka. However, as far as responsibilities go, he only walks them home. And even then he walks Hitomi and Madoka partway, and goes almost all the way with Sayaka considering that he lives pretty close to her,

The aforementioned females make their way towards him, who's waiting just outside the door. "You guys ready to go?"

Madoka nods. "Yeah. It's been a while since I walked home with you guys, hasn't it?"

"Uh-huh," Sayaka confirms. "You've always been held up by something or another these past two weeks."

"You've only gone home on time one time since then, haven't you?" Hitomi adds questioningly.

"Something like that," she confirms.

"That must've been pretty rough, Kaname-san," Kyousuke says, offering his condolences and tapping her on the shoulder.

She looks up at the taller boy. "It wasn't really that bad, Kamijou-kun," she says timidly. "It was the same with Miyagi-kun, too. I guess he made it a little better, what with his jokes and all..."

Hitomi and Sayaka freeze up as they notice the slight blush on the pink-haired girl's face.

Sayaka grins maliciously. "Oh, my, you've grown up so finely, Madoka! You've finally shown interest in a boy."

Madoka shakes her head vigorously. "It's not like that!"

"Why _him_, of all people," Hitomi wonders aloud, switching her hands' position from holding her bag in front of her to behind. "He doesn't seem like Madoka-chan's type. He's kind of...lackadaisical, for lack of a better word. Doesn't seem like he'd take love and relationships too seriously."

"Lackadaisical or not, his class rank _is_ number two, right behind Shizuka-san...Maybe since Madoka's been alone with him a lot, she's gotten to see his hidden depths, or something like that," Sayaka says, seeming to forget that Kyousuke and the very girl they're referring to is right there beside them.

Madoka hangs her head as the two of them go on a tangent about reasons why she would like Hajime. "They're not listening..." she complains with a dejected tone to her voice.

Kyousuke notices Sayaka calling out Hajime's name. The boy turns around surprised, and she makes the 'I'm watching you' gesture with Hitomi shooting a glare his way at the same time, and then the two of them turn back towards Kyousuke and Madoka, leaving the boy paranoid and confused.

Sayaka clears her throat and says, "Well, how about we leave? I'm thinking that, to celebrate Madoka finally being able to come home at a decent time after two weeks, we should head to the mall. Is that okay with you guys?"

"Sorry," Hitomi says, bowing her head in apology, "I can't today."

"Oh. Rich girl stuff," Sayaka asks as their party of four makes their way down the stairs to the ground floor.

She nods.

"What is it this time," Madoka asks.

"Tea ceremony."

"Ah," Kyousuke says, reaching the last step as the one taking up the rear. "That's too bad, Shizuki-san."

"It really is...but don't let me keep you guys from having fun," she says, verbally waving it off. "Just be sure to make up for it later, okay?"

"Are you sure, Hitomi," asks Sayaka, turning and walking backward through the door of the school and down the steps.

"Of course," she answers, and switches her posture so that her hands are behind her back. "It's no problem, since you guys _are _going to make up for it, right?" She flashes a look at Kyousuke, Sayaka, and Madoka in turn.

Kyousuke flips his bag over his shoulder and rubs his head where he felt an itch. "Well, I suppose we should walk you home fir—"

"Ah, you don't need to worry about that," she says as she stops all forward advance, almost making Kyousuke run into her. He swerves out of the way and the three that the green-haired girl was partied with look back to see her engage seamlessly and effortlessly in conversation with a party of two, Kanamori Rentarou and another girl from Kyousuke and company's class with straight reddish-purple hair and a sly expression: Kitsune Zuruka. "These two go in our direction, too, so don't worry about me." She holds up a hand in farewell as the two parties go opposite directions. "See you all tomorrow!"

The party of three also give their farewells as they part, however a certain gray-haired boy lets out a sigh as he walks away. "That Shizuki-san is ever the social butterfly, isn't she?"

"Isn't she," Sayaka responds, putting her free hand behind her head. "I swear, the wonders of being a rich girl."

"I wish I could just become friends with anyone like that, too," Madoka comments with a sort of saddened tone to her voice, something that for some reason served to pluck one of Kamijou's nerves.

"Hey now, Kaname-san, you can," he contests, walking up to match her pace behind Sayaka. "All you have to do is go up and say hi, you know; you're the type of person that can get along with anyone."

She looks up at him with a doubtful look on her face. "You think s—kya!" She bumps into him as Sayaka practically throws herself on the smaller girl.

"Of course, you don't have to worry about that since _I'm _here, Madoka," Sayaka teases as she nuzzles her face against the pinkette's.

However, not even three seconds into the snuggling, she freezes and spins Madoka around to look her in the eye. "Wait...could it be...you want to be popular so that all the guys will start flocking to you?"

"E-eh?" Madoka wears a look of confusion at the ludicrous notion. Or, actually, the not-so-ludicrous notion; dreams like that are reasonable for a girl her age, he guesses. "T-that's not it..."

"Oh ho ho, I get it now," Sayaka starts, her smile growing by the second, "However, I refuse to let that happen! Because you, my precious Madoka, belong to _me_!"

Now, Kamijou Kyousuke, despite having known these two girls for most of his life, is still completely befuddled by the behavior of one of them on a daily basis. He realizes it may be a decade or so too late to be thinking this, but his childhood friend is one heck of a weirdo.

That being said, it'd be a bit unfair to complain about it, since that's just who she is.

"Come on, girls," Kyousuke says, moving to the left of the frolicking females he is talking to, "you can fool around plenty when we get to the mall. The quicker we get off of the streets, the better."

Sayaka pouts and looks at him, begrudgingly releasing her pink-haired best friend and complaining, "Killjoy. You're no fun."

He scoffs. "No fun? More like sensible."

She continues to pout and resumes her forward motion, turning her head to Madoka and asking, "So where do you think we should go first when we get there, Madoka?"

Madoka, despite being the one normally asked in past outings, looks at her somewhat surprised. "E-eh? Um...how about the music store?"

Sayaka's face lights up. "Oh, the music store, huh? Good idea, Madoka," she praises, rubbing the girl's head and then turning toward Kyousuke, obviously overjoyed at the idea of returning to the music store that the two of them know so well.

Kyousuke, on the other hand, isn't quite as enthusiastic. Don't get him wrong; music is pretty much his life. He only has a problem with it courtesy of a certain energetic blue-haired fourteen year-old. The reason for his foreboding being...

"Hey, Kyousuke, since you're here, I have to have you listen to this one song by Debussy," the girl says with much enthusiasm, putting her bag on her shoulder and grabbing both Kyousuke and Madoka by the hand and moving with top speed to the mall.

...This. One may recall that Sayaka had practically been burying him in music-related gifts while he was in the hospital, to the point that when he was finally discharged his parents and the nurses had to carry out two full-sized boxes just to get them to his house. And it seems that this particular habitual occurrence won't be stopping anytime soon.

Not that he has the right or the privilege to complain. A lot of boys he knows would love to have a sweet girl doting on him whatever chance they get, so he could rightfully be considered a heretic to the male community by complaining about it, and let him tell you, being alienated by his own kind isn't really something he's eager to accomplish.

And so, with that said, this boy will take whatever his childhood friend drags him into in stride, however he can only hope that they have enough spare boxes at home for the music he'll soon accumulate.

* * *

They didn't go straight to the music shop.

Fun fact: Sayaka is _excellent _at getting sidetracked, that's always been constant in her personality, like her love for heroes, knights, and _pirates_, strangely.

And so they spent their first half hour or so in the mall poking around gelato stands, a lingerie shop (which Kyousuke wisely decided to wait outside of), and even a toy store, where Sayaka picked up a model cutlass and tried to duel with Kyousuke, which he eventually conceded to, picking up a model rapier and sword-fighting with her until the clerk threatened to throw them out of the store.

Now, after that 30 or so minutes, the trio of Miki Sayaka, Kamijou Kyousuke, and Kaname Madoka finally reach their original destination of the mall's single music store.

The shop is modest in size, though only that as the wide array of music selections is something to gawk at, considering that every obscure genre is covered with at least ten copies of a varying number of albums from at least twenty artists that fall in that genre. One wonders how the clerk managed to fit all of the stock into the shop; the feat is regarded as so impressive that the man that owns and runs the shop is regarded as the local God of Spatial Management, not that he cares very much about all of that.

The three people give out various salutations to the relaxed, blond-haired blue-eyed store clerk before heading to the genre rack that Sayaka led them to: the classical music rack.

Madoka, however, strays over to the rack opposite, the pop and idol music section, not being much of a fan of the more old-fashioned music.

Sayaka starts searching through the music for what she wants Kyousuke to listen to, however before she can find what she's searching for, the Spatial Management God calls out to the gray-haired boy.

"Hey, Kamijou-kun, care to help me out for a second?"

"Sure," he responds, finding no reason to turn him down. "Be back in a bit," he says towards the two girls behind him at their respective racks, then walks up to the clerk's counter.

"What do you need?" Kyousuke asks, and is quickly answered with the clerk's moronic answer.

"When are you going to make a move?"

There's a silence hanging in the air as the gray-haired boy processes the Spatial Management God's query. "Huh?"

"Look, kiddo, it looks to me that you at least have Miki-kun over there pretty...attached to you, to say the least. Shizuki-kun as well, maybe even more so than Miki-kun. Why don't you just swoop in for the kill?"

"...You think so?"

"Sure! But now for something totally unrelated," he says, reaching down under his counter and placing it on top of it. "Could you go and buy me a sandwich or something, please? I haven't eaten anything since eight this morning and I left my lunch at home. Could you please?"

_This man..._

He looks down at the bills placed in front of him, then back to the man, noting the amount he gave him wasn't proportionate to what he asked for. "...Do you want five sandwiches or something?"

"No no, just one will suffice. However," he starts, leaning closer to the boy with a suspicious look on his face. "I happened to rip my pants on the counter here earlier today, and I can't exactly walk about with my drawers hanging out, can I?"

He looks incredulously at the man. _Was he serious? _"So you want a sandwich and some pants, right?"

The clerk puts his finger up to his mouth and shushes him. "Whoa whoa whoa, not so loud," he whisper-yells at him.

Kyousuke sighs and turns towards the door. "I get it, I get it. Be back in a sec, alright?"

"Thank you, Kamijou-kun. I really appreciate it," he says, waving the boy off.

The gray-haired boy, pocketing the money the man gave him, exits the store and embarks on a journey to complete this side quest to the main story.

"Geez," he whispers to himself, walking with his hands in his pockets and contemplating over that man's misfortune, at least in the present moment. "That's some luck you have today, old man."

He continues the walk, turning the corner in the direction of the clothing store, and nearly walks into a group of high school girls. He should note that the mall, being open from eight to seven on weekdays, is most busy on any given day the first two or three hours after school lets out. That fact remains true, even with the serial kidnapper on the loose. He supposes that nothing can come between teenagers and their assorted media paraphernalia.

And as such, what with the teens' relentless lusting for goods, advertisers are similarly hounding for their attention, as shown with a manga store's advertisement for _Puella Magi Meduka Meguca _by Nakazawa Hideo.

_Nakazawa Hideo...could he be related to Hideki?_

This 'Nakazawa Hideo' could very possibly be related to Hideki. However, Nakazawa being on the more common side of the naming spectrum, it could be a totally unrelated person. And if this person _is _related to him, he wouldn't exactly be surprised. Perhaps talent for literature runs in the family.

As they boy muses over this, he walks into the clothing store and begins searching for a pair of pants that would fit the young clerk, however he realizes he forgot to do something before he left.

"I forgot to ask for his size..." he mutters, feeling like a total idiot for forgetting that essential detail.

Despite that, the boy forges onward, partly because he can approximate a size or, even better, buy him some sweatpants or something similar, and also because his pride won't let him return without _something_. Despite Kyousuke's humble personality, he has his pride like any other person to protect.

And so the boy wanders around the store, eventually happening upon a few pairs of sweatpants, and he picks up a pair whose size lies in the middle ground of what's available.

"Okay...this should be acceptable, at least," the gray-haired boy says to himself, walking up to the counter and having the clerk ring up his purchase.

...

...

...

He shudders violently. There's no particular reason for, he's sure everyone has shuddered involuntarily before in their lives, but this just feels...different. In a bad way.

The clerk hands him the pants and the boy exits the store, giving his thanks and putting a bit of urgency into his pace. He doesn't know why, but he thinks it would be a good idea to get back to his childhood friends soon.

* * *

He eyes his targets with a mission in mind. Entropy is an undeniable force of this universe, and is something that him, his kind, and most definitely most sane humans want to put off for as long as possible.

As such, he makes his way down to the maintenance area of the mall, where he knows a witch is lurking.

A witch. The nemesis of the magical girl, and an entity that probably wouldn't get much praise from humans if they knew of their existence. A girl by the name of Hinshiyama Hana was fighting a witch down in the area just moments ago after a particularly nasty revelation that her 'best friend' was one of the ones responsible for trampling the flowers that were the girl's raison d'être. And it was simple bullying taken too far, shown by the girl's utter shell-shocked demeanor from then to now.

The girls responsible knew of Hana's obsession with planting, however they didn't know of its importance to her. Perhaps if they were aware of that fact, they wouldn't have done it, and the girl wouldn't be in the predicament that she is now.

What's this 'predicament', you ask? Well, her reaction to this revelation is strong, to say the least, and it's still going on, so she's gradually reaching her soul limit, her despair event horizon. She's at her limit and without grief seeds, and frankly, has no intention of doing anything to stop it. If she has to go home and see her demolished bed of flowers, she might as well just let herself end here. Let her life expire as did her precious flowers.

Kinshiyama Hana, the _dying mountain flower,_ has finally reached the end result that her name implies, and now she takes the form of the Rose Garden Witch, Gertrud. And she is exactly what the Incubator needs to force the hand of Miki Sayaka, and possibly even the great MacGuffin Girl, Kaname Madoka into forming a contract and becoming Puella Magi.

Now that he's reached the edge of the barrier, the familiars have begun to take notice of him, and have started straying towards him. The only thing needed to get the ball rolling is a few words. Three, to be exact.

He reaches out to the closer one, the pink one's mind and begins.

"_Madoka, save me!"_

* * *

Kyousuke shows up at the door of the shop, breathing heavily.

The clerk looks up from the crossword puzzle he was engrossed in. "Eh? What's wrong, Kamijou-kun?"

The boy doesn't answer; he just puts the requested items on the counter and looks for around for something, anything. Whatever the reason for his distress of unknown origin.

What he finds, however, is nothing. Or rather _no one_.

He turns to the man. "Onpa-san, where are Sayaka and Madoka?"

The man flinches slightly, noting the contrast between his usual meek tone of voice and his current stern one. He points behind the boy to the aisles. "T-they're right—"

No one.

Onpa Senritsu has finally realized his customers are gone. "...there…?"

Kamijou scours the room, searching for any sign of where the two girls have gone, and finds a door slightly ajar in the back reading 'employees only'.

"I'll..." Keeping his back to the clerk, the boy activates the more magical part of himself, turning his soul gem in its dormant form, a ring on his left middle finger, into its active one and says, "I'll be right back, Onpa-san."

He goes through the door and goes down a flight of stairs, hearing the man call out to him but promptly ignoring him, coming out into the maintenance area of the mall, building and store materials scattered around the place. The first thing he intends to do is use his gem to detect any magical signatures, but what he actually does is cough. And uncontrollably at that.

The boy rubs his nose as he looks around, then down to his gem, which is shining slightly, signaling that _something_ magical is nearby, whether it's another magical girl or a witch. He's going to assume it's the latter. "The dust down here is pretty bad. Does this mean that I'm still affected by allergies even though I've contracted," he wonders to himself as he turns to the right, down the spacious hallway with the most disheveled appearance.

He doesn't even have to take ten steps before the signal starts getting stronger.

Needless to say, the boy takes off down the corridor into a more open space, yet similarly messy. On the left wall there are big metal you'd find in warehouses to load in stock, the far wall and right one holding more long, wide hallways.

He steps out into area and the gem begins glowing brighter than before, signaling to him that what has to be a witch's barrier is pretty much within only a few paces. That which is confirmed as within a few feet in front of him the air ripples violently, meaning something pretty rowdy is going on on the other side, something he cannot see yet.

_I really, really hope those two didn't end up in there_, the boy thinks to himself as he steps forward and reaches out toward the ripple in the space in front of him.

However, instead of simply reaching the full way there, he accelerates his hand right before it hits, his hand plunging into what would appear to be nothingness as the air around him ripples, and he pulls himself through the minor rip he forced into it.

The rip widens to accommodate his size, leaving what looks like a jagged tear in dimensions or something as he steps into a trippy cut-and-paste themed world, complete with what he can see is a swarm of flying mustaches and a small mob of dancing cotton balls. This witch's freakish abode, her barrier.

In the slight distance, the mob seems to be getting increasingly antsy as he sees a plume of white escape the group.

_Don't tell me...Sayaka and Madoka are in there?_

The boy transforms into his magical attire and readies himself in a sprinter's stance, his rapier and musketeer hat having yet to be conjured. He shouldn't need to use his amplification ability to dispatch this group, but he does need to get there mighty fast, which is where his magically-enhanced body comes in handy. Using it at full capacity, he can stray pretty close to the speed of even the god of speed's incarnate Usain Bolt with ease.

He takes off, conjuring his sectioned rapier at half the distance and readying something that can dispatch them all at once: an application of his magic he just recently discovered he had that could prove potentially deadly in any and all situations.

Tapping the 1/16th note insignia on his rapier's hilt, the weapon extends at the three marks on the blade that he at first thought were purely decorative, revealing a set of mini-speakers under each one.

Yes, it's exactly as you're thinking. Probably.

Much like how a siren uses her songs to manipulate the heart of their target, he will be using music to make these familiars self-destruct. To the currently assaulted girls, it will sound like a somber melody on the violin, but to the familiars it will be a song whose notes bear the whispered coaxing of chaos.

Three-quarters of the way there, he starts the tune by tapping his weapon against the ground, and gradually the familiars all turn their focus from the girls to each other, and then they have themselves a battle royale.

One that he's now definitely going to have an easier time wrapping up.

But he didn't come for that. His primary objective is to get his childhood friends out of this bind, not to execute a witch or tangle with its familiars. If he turns his attention to the familiars rather than the girls, the familiars might accidentally hurt them, with or without hitting their intended target.

Now that he's finally reached them, he takes the fastest way to the center by ripping a straight line through the enemies, breaking through them to find Sayaka and Madoka weaving through the crowds in the opposite direction of him, the bluenette with a fire extinguisher in hand, firing off blasts at any of the familiars that happen across them.

_Damn it! I don't need them to go further in!_

"Sayaka! Kaname-san!" He reaches to remove his hat in case it blocks his face, and grabbed nothing but air. "Oh right, I didn't conjure my hat..."

The two slow down, if only slightly to catch a glimpse of the boy who called out to them, and see a ridiculously-dressed Kyousuke.

"Kyousuke?"

"K-Kamijou-kun?"

The girls seem to be shocked to the point of stopping in their tracks, and nearly get barreled over by one of the flying mustachioed blobs until Sayaka steps out of the way, taking Madoka with her.

"What are you—" Sayaka starts, but the boy interrupts her.

"Please save your questions for _after_ we escape this fuzzy mosh pit of doom!" He beckons to them, moving forward himself to ensure they get to him unhindered, disposing of the few unlucky familiars that strayed too close.

The girls reach him unscathed. "Kyousuke, what's going on," Sayaka asks, holding her fire extinguisher at the ready.

"Again, please save your questions for after we escape this dilemma," he insists, turning to look behind him hoping that the lane he made to enter the crowd is still there for him to escape, and to his surprise it's mostly clear, littered with the bodies of the familiars, and he can't quite take credit for all of them. Well, directly, at least.

"Come with me."

The two girls look at each other, at Kyousuke, and the mustachioed maelstrom surrounding them, then follow behind the boy who's leading the way for them.

They pass through the crowd without much hindrance, until one of the airborne familiars charges through the air like a missile, something that Kyousuke thinks, looking back on it, would have been awesome to have been able to dodge, since instead the girls got to experience something rather traumatizing.

There's a sickening crunch as the familiar flies into his ribcage, the impact being so hard that the boy falls to his knees and coughs up blood.

Lacking breath and any type of cognitive thought, he swings out at that familiar on instinct as he grabs at his now-shattered ribcage, a sound similar to a healing spell's sound effect plays and a wispy orange substance wraps around his torso, taking the shape of a breastplate and a popping sound emanates from his chest, his bones reset and fully healed.

The assailing familiar is cut in half with extreme prejudice, however another one takes its place and avenges its comrade's death by flying into his striking arm at full speed and, well, that wasn't pretty.

He gasps in pain as his arm is turned into a mangled mess, however isn't disoriented enough that he can't dispose of the familiar that hit him. He grabs it by the wing with his good hand and flings it in a direction that will cause the most collateral damage, tearing off the wing he was holding on to due to him not actually letting go as he went through the motion and let momentum do the work for him.

Going through the same process as his ribs, his arm repairs itself and gains an aura resembling a piece of armor.

A wish for him to return stronger from any injury is what gave him his power, and it takes it literally. For each serious injury on each body part (head, torso, upper arms, lower arms, hands, thighs, lower legs, feet), his strength and speed increases by whatever interval he wants to.

Seeking to expend the least amount of magic as possible in this rescue, he has the interval on the relatively low setting of one-half, which will suffice for getting out of this barrier.

_Why did that first one attack me? I can understand the second one may have just missed in going after that first familiar, but the __magic I used should have it consider its own kind an enemy, so the __first one had no reason to come after me._

He looks around and confirms this, seeing almost no familiars in his immediate area since they've cleared the crowd and are basically on the home stretch.

Jotting that down in his mind as something to address later, he points to the tear in the barrier, their way back into the real world and calls to the girls. "The exit's right there! Just a few more seconds!" He slows down some, allowing the girls to break in front of him so he can cover their escape.

He turns around, alert for their closest pursuer, and instead finds the two girls staring at him with horrified worry.

"Just keep going, you two! You can worry all you want on the other side of that opening, okay," he directs them, his voice slightly off-pitch and raspy from the shock of the injuries he just received. He supposes that doesn't do much to ease their nerves, but he hopes they have the common sense or self-preservation instinct to just do as he says.

He turns around to confront their pursuers, buying the girls time to get out, and is faced with a stampede of the ground-based familiars and a wall of flying ones.

"Ah..."

He focuses his magic, pushing it to the farthest he can without burning out, up to an interval of five, and stomps on the ground, breaking apart the ground around him, and unsettling the closer familiars and knocking them all into the air, then he rushes forward and flings them into the crowd, throwing their ranks into disarray.

Or at least, that's what he wished happened, since familiars behave not so much like a team than a machine. They trample their fallen comrades with no hesitation and produce scissors from...somewhere, making their charge all the more frightening.

A bead of sweat runs down his face as he finds himself at a loss for what to do. He may be fast with the enhancement he has, but he doubts he can cover all of the enemies before they reach the girls, because they were gaining on them pretty fast.

Deciding to take action instead of standing there idling over what to do, he begins to run forward...

Only to have a mass of red fly into his vision.

"OH SHI—"

He brings up his rapier, leaning under the thing and stabbing at it, leaving it impaled on the tip.

Upon closer and steadier inspection, it is the fire extinguisher a certain blue-haired girl had in her hand, with her hand still attached.

"What are you doing, Sayaka?," he asks in outrage, starting to pull the blade out of the red container, but before he could get it that far out Sayaka starts to wrest the blade and container out of his hands as he feels small, delicate appendages on his sides.

And then they started moving.

Kyousuke jumps immediately, bursting into restrained laughter, hands moving to his sides as he's assaulted by Madoka's dextrous fingers. Her tickle technique seems enough to bring even the most stoic and hardened to their knees.

Meanwhile, Sayaka throws the combination of sword and fire extinguisher in front of the advancing mob, the way that it lands on the rapier at an angle ripping an even bigger hole and the momentum managing to disconnect the two, sending the extinguisher spinning and creating a smokescreen.

Without a second's pause, Sayaka yells, "Come on!" and starts to assist Madoka in picking the boy up, and Kyousuke, shaking off the shock of Madoka's ambush, runs to the exit with the two girls.

The reach the dimensional rift and he directs the girls through first, a pink and a blue head of hair escaping back into the real world, and his own grey hair escapes as well, grabbing the sides of the rift and yanking them closed like he's closing curtains.

However, as he turns around, her realizes he has no idea where they are.

Okay, that's not true. He has some idea; they're still in the maintenance area, but he's not sure _where_ they came out at, and he doubts he can just pick a room to go back up without being question by the shop's owner, or possible even mall security.

Powering down, he looks around in an attempt to gain his bearings, his eyes eventually focusing down the hallway towards the same open space that he managed to find the barrier at. If he goes back there, he can manage to figure out which pathway he went down to get back to Senritsu's shop.

Taking a step, he puts up a hand to signal for the girls to accompany him, but he stops as he notices the knot that's beginning to form in his stomach.

_Wait...those two just saw me using magic...they're bound to want some answers..._

He looks back at the two girls accompanying him, not wanting to confirm his suspicions but knowing he can't ignore it, and he sees different variations of a similar emotion: curiosity.

Madoka's eyes are filled with worried curiosity, though carrying the timidness true to her character, as it seems she wants to know what's up but isn't sure that she should ask.

Sayaka, however, is looking upon him with almost cross expectancy, a look he thinks would be what he would see if he were to steal her ice cream and then told her he had a good reason, then left her hanging.

Feeling extremely uncomfortable under their stares, he thinks of ways to avoid drawing them any further into the realm of magic...

_Wait!_

_Hachibey told me once that Preventers' contracts come including built-in memory manipulation magic...maybe I can use that to wipe their memories..._

_"And risk causing irreparable damage to their brains in the process? I'm certain you don't know how to use that magic."_

Kyousuke freezes at the young, innocent voice that invaded his brain.

Whipping his head around, he attempts to find the source, and his eyes settle on Madoka, whose arms were being used as a comfortable chair for a white-haired creature.

He immediately clenches his fists and his jaw and stares at the creature, making Madoka step back in confusion.

Take that 'young, innocent voice' and add the adverb "deceptively" before it, for that voice is anything but innocent.

_Kyuubey..._

_"Thank you for saving me and these girls, Kamijou Kyousuke," _the Incubator says, looking at the two girls in turn. _"Now I can actually begin with what I wanted to explain to them before I got interrupted by that witch's familiars."_

The tension of that area got noticeably higher on one side's part.

* * *

_One hour later..._

Her hair was out.

That was different to say the least. Not something you'd see often, given how accustomed people are with seeing it.

Her crimson hair, instead of being in their signature ribbon-secured ponytail, was now cascading down her back in waves reminiscent of a waterfall.

This was, of course, because Dr. Douchebag confiscated her ribbon when she tried to strangle him with it.

Keep this in mind: there are a couple of things wrong with this situation. One such thing has just been listed.

She's sitting cross-legged at a table, nothing but a teacup and an empty cake dish on the table looking as sparkly clean as it was_ before_ the food was placed on it. Nothing too strange, considering how this particular girl is.

But here's the weird part.

That plate did not belong to her. She had a similar dish laid out in front of her, untouched. Her hands were in her lap, looking at a place the situation dictates she shouldn't: the setting

Weird part number three.

This was not new for her, but there was something off, besides the redhead not eating her food. Normally the table and the room its in has a sort of regal and sophisticated feel to it, reeking of the stench of _"Ojou-sama"_, but now all of that is coming from a different source.

The usual stylish furniture and decoration adorning the room is gone, replaced by a lame old warehouse with pockets of civilization around it consisting of teenage and pre-teen girls, and the two odd males.

And now, another thing.

The person the _"ojou-sama" _aura is radiating from.

She heard this person had died in another time. Got her head bit clean off by a witch. In fact, it's _because_ she died that she even got involved with Mitakihara again and got caught up in this insane predicament.

Her name was Tomoe Mami and she was hosting this out-of-place tea party for two.

Why? Well, reconciliation of course. Their relationship, for one reason or another, ended kind of rocky and abruptly, and so the two of them, both of whom it was painfully obvious that regrets were abundant, ended up agreeing to mend their relationship.

Of course, this all started with apologies.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry."

Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be said; they got to the main point, and they knew what each other wanted to add. And so, anything other spoken words were simply superfluous. They were sorry and wanted to put it behind them as fast as possible, and that's what they did.

However, for sake of anyone viewing this unbelievable story, there will be some elaboration on the matter.

Back in the day, Sakura Kyoko was the student to Tomoe Mami's mentor. Mami taught the girl everything she needed to know about witch hunting and the like, and the two girls made a very fearsome team. There was no witch that could truly threaten them.

However, they were a threat to each other.

Kyoko had problems at home relating to her wish. At first, everything was fine; they were happy, her father's religious teachings were starting to take hold on the populace, everything was all fine and dandy. Mami bore witness to this.

Kyoko was a cheerful and bright girl, happy that she could be of help to her father. So she supported her father from the shadows, fighting witches in the deep night, while her father enlightened the masses through his teachings in the day.

Then this once cheerful girl turned sour.

Her dad found out why his teachings became so popular: the wish made by Kyoko, which employed magic on the masses to make them come and listen, not of their own interest or free will, and the father labels her as a witch, yada yada yada, then BAM! Pater-familicide [1], right there, because he couldn't take it any more, leaving the girl incredibly bitter and on her own.

The rest of the story is kind of in a downward spiral, but it ends with the two's views on life, witch-hunting, and everything else differing so much that the two had to split up.

Now throw in a few years or so of regret between then and now, and you have their situation.

However, it looks like the storm has passed, now that apologies have been exchanged and there is food on the table.

Kyoko picks up her fork and starts digging into the cake, but her eyes are on something completely unrelated.

"..."

The noises of eating are the only thing heard as the redhead stares hard at something in front of her, much to the drill-tailed blonde's dismay.

"Wh-what is it," Mami asks, reaching for the cup of tea Kyoko's pretty sure wasn't there a second ago.

"I see your tit size is still as big as before, huh, Mami..."

The senpai ojou-sama figure looks taken aback for a second, but then giggles.

"I see you're still as sensitive about your humble bust as back then, Sakura-san."

"Of course I am!" She yells before she takes another bite of her cake. "And I swear, Mami, if you don't start calling me by my first name, I will fondle those cowtits until they're sore."

She takes a sip of her tea. "Yes, of course, Sa—_Kyoko_, but is there really a need to be so vulgar in your threats?"

"Yes. It's part of my natural beauty." Another bite.

"Is it now?" Another sip.

"Of course. I couldn't call myself Sakura Kyoko if I didn't get a bit nasty every once in a while." Bite. Chew.

"I don't think that's something you should say with your head held high." Sip. Swallow.

Bite.

Sip.

Chew.

Swallow.

Bitesip.

Chewswallow.

The plate and the cup lay empty on the table.

"Ahem."

It seems they've finally decided to acknowledge the ahoge sticking out around the corner.

"My god, what do you want, Kazumi? I can't tell if you're scared of me or can't stand to be away from me!" Kyoko pushes herself up from then ground and stomps over, grabbing the girl by her rebellious strand of hair and pulling her out in the open with a grunt.

"W-what the hell? Were you always this heavy...?" She asks as she pulls again, seeing as she barely caused her to budge. This time there's a slight popping sound and a yelp from further behind the wall.

"...What."

Mami, having had enough, stands up herself and investigates the unknown sound. When she sees what it was, she says "Oh my."

She helps the source to their feet, and Kyoko recognizes Tachibana Souichirou with a very dislocated shoulder.

"Ah..." She turns to the girl whose hair she has in her hand. "That's your fault, you know."

"H-how is it my fault," she asks in outrage, struggling in my grip until I decide to let her go. "Oof!"

Someone's butt is now sore.

"Because you were holding on to his arm so tightly." She walks over and grabs the man by his arm, causing him to yelp again and Mami to frown in disapproval. "Look; there's even bruise marks in the shape of your hand!"

Kazumi's eyes drift to the affliction, and her eyes immediately start tearing up.

She locks her eyes with Souichirou, who immediately pulls away from Kyoko and covers up the afflicted area, wincing in pain in response.

"Tachibana-san...why didn't you tell me it hurt?"

He looks at a loss for words, so Kyoko instead grabbed the man by his arm and snapped it back into its socket.

Cue girlish wail from Souichirou. "At least warn me first!"

He's promptly ignored as Kyoko turns to Kazumi again.

"So...what do you want from me?"

"Get off your high horse! It's my savior I want to talk to," she declares as she points at Mami.

_Why am I not surprised...?_

There's a look of vague recognition in her eyes. "Ah...Kazusa...Michiru-san, right?"

"Y-yes! But I go by Kazumi! Subaru Kazumi," she responds with an amendment to her identity.

"Then, Suba—"

"Call me Kazumi, please, Tomoe-senpai."

"My, you two are quite insistent, aren't you," she comments to her and Kyoko, and continues, "Then, _Kazumi-san_, is there anything I can help you with?"

Kazumi takes a deep breath, as if preparing herself for some big announcement, but given what she's learned of her over these past two weeks or so she's been in here, she can assume it's nothing really important.

"A dessert-making competition!"

"Huh?"

"Excuse me?"

"_That's _what you dragged me here for?!"

That was the collective reaction of Kyoko, Mami, and Souichirou.

Kyoko opened her mouth to say something, but Kazumi held up a hand.

"Wait. Let me explain," she interjects with a sage look on her face.

"Yes, please do!"

It appears Souichirou is unhappy with having his shoulder pulled out of his socket and his wrist crushed for such a trivial reason. Such is shown by his outraged expression and interjection.

"You see, I had heard from Yuma-chan and Arata-san that your desserts were pretty good, and I wanted to see if they were as good as Tachibana-san's..."

Mami and Ichi-chan, from what could be seen from their expressions, were less than pleased by this certain turn of events, but Kyoko found it as a very tempting idea indeed.

_A chance to taste both Mami's pastries and Ichi-chan's parfaits and sundaes in one sitting...This is a chance at pure bliss!_

"I dunno..." The 20-something year-old man says hesitantly.

"I don't like the idea of competing on a simple joy of life like this..." Mami says with a similar tone.

"...Well I, for one, agree," Kyoko voices this opinion, surprising the two veterans in their respective fields a bit. They had thought that the one who was the least tolerant of Kazumi's shenanigans (when they were something that didn't interest her) would be the one to come through for them in this case, but they should've known that if food was involved it may well be a lost cause.

"See, see! Kyoko-chan agrees!" The slightly younger girl, in the midst of her joy, attempts to hug our still odd-hairstyled redhead, but is stopped in her tracks as Kyoko holds out a hand to her head.

"Just think of this as a chance to make the two of us, your kouhai and resident genki girl, happy by blessing us with your absolutely delicious food. Like, please?" She cocks her head to the side and clasps her hands together, looking at her former mentor with expectant eyes and hoping to some higher being that she'll give. She can see that beside her, Kazumi's hands are clenched and her ahoge is twitching in excitement, looking at Souichirou with puppy-dog eyes.

"..."

"..."

"Fine."

"I suppose we'll have to."

It seems their resolve faltered under their adorable gazes.

Making sure no one was looking, Kyoko grinned maliciously. It seems the showdown between the two best cooks in this dungeon is nigh.

* * *

_Thirty minutes prior..._

Kyuubey explained it.

Magical girls, what was necessary to know about witches, soul gems, and the wishes they can make in exchange for fighting witches.

Sayaka had asked if there was a limit to how big of a wish she could make, and Kyuubey responded with _"Not at all, as long as you have a high enough magical capacity for it."_

She used the example, "Do I have a high enough capacity to wish for, say, world peace?"

To which Kyuubey responded with, _"Unfortunately, no."_

That was all for Sayaka's inquisition.

Kyuubey then proceeded to ramble on and on about about Madoka's magical potential, and she was flustered and feeling incredibly humbled to say the least. Kyousuke could practically see the "Why do I have so much potential?" and "Am I really worthy of this?" running through her mind, but contrary to something he'd ever see from last timeline's Madoka, a look of...interest has taken up residence in her eyes. Like how a recruiter would look at a soccer player and note what he could do for his team; that kind of interest. Though it was faint, it seems she was already thinking about the good she could do with power like that. He supposes that's a step up from last timeline.

Kyousuke clenches his fists. He was not happy. Not in the least. He didn't want to get them involved in magic, but he also didn't have the heart to kill what to them looks like a cute animal mascot right in front of their face.

Then came another inquiry.

"Kyuubey...If you said that only girls can be contracted, what does that make Kyousuke," Sayaka asks, looking towards the boy in question and prompting Madoka to do so as well.

_"A product of a rebellion. There are those of our kind who wish to do harm upon our cause, exiles of our society, that contract boys to oppose us. However, I only say boys cannot be contracted according to our standard means of turning you all into a magical girl. The rebels use a different method."_

Sayaka and Madoka look at him funny, like he just canceled a subscription to Greenpeace.

Kyuubey must have taken note of this, because he adds _"But rest assured. Kyousuke was contracted by one of the more conservative groups, whose goal is not to directly harm or impede us, but to ensure the magical girls' survival. He's here to help you two, assuming you two decide to make a contract."_

The girls' expressions soften somewhat, but he guesses the fact that he's part of a 'rebel' group doesn't really sit well with them.

"But why are they going against you guys?" Madoka asks.

_"That is something I can't quite understand."_

_Bullshit. You know the fundamental reason, you just can't understand it on an emphatic and moral level._

That's something he wanted to say, but kept to himself.

_"Well, that concludes your introduction to the Puella Magi. Do either of you wish to form a contract now, or do you need some time to think?"_

With little hesitation, Madoka declares that she'd like more time, however Sayaka takes a bit longer to reach the same conclusion.

Without many more words on mine or the alien's part, they make their way back up to the main part of the store behind Sayaka (she claims she just has "a good sense of direction") and, after exchanging pleasantries with Onpa-san and lying to him as to why we were down there, we leave the mall.

_"I think it's about time I take my leave," _Kyuubey says as he leaps down from Madoka's arms, wiggling an ear in what they guess is a farewell. _"Think hard about what you want to wish about. I'm here whenever you are ready."_

And with that, Kyuubey slinks into oblivion.

It's dusk by now, the sun setting low below the clouds and tinting the sky a deep orange.

As Kyousuke expected, the two girls were quiet, thinking hard about the information they just learned.

Information he was not happy with them knowing.

If he could help it, he would stop them from being exposed to magic ever again.

And, by pure coincidence, he happens to see a certain blue-haired young boy with a mint-green Incubator perched on his shoulder.

_Looks like wiping their memory actually is an option._

His name was Kamijou Kyousuke and he would protect his childhood friends, no matter what.

* * *

**A/N: Before I forget: HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY, MADOKA! (It was on October 3rd)**

***cough* Anyway, that's a wrap. Again, sorry for the delay, stuff happened, and in addition to that stuff I managed to break my hand so I couldn't get a lot of typing (you can read that as "any typing") done. 'Tis unfortunate, but that's just life.**

**But anyway, there weren't as many boobs in this one as I originally planned. I guess I thought it was about time the "plot" was shoved aside to make way for the actual plot. Our cast has more or less been playing grab-ass these last few chapters (Kyou especially; he still hasn't done anything), so it's time to pick things up, as you have seen and will see _very _soon.**

**That being said, though, it's kind of hard to make any scene 100% serious with Kyoko or Kazumi in it. Especially when Souichirou gets involved, though he didn't contribute much this time; I suppose you can call Kyoko and her crew comic relief, despite Kyoko being one of the main characters. Here's to his and Mami's delicious cooking...*grumble*...now I'm hungry.**

**Kyousuke's also made himself out to be main character material, so I don't regret making him one of them in the story's character listings (Kyou, Homura, Kyoko, and Kyousuke).**

**Well...next chapter's a serious one, so I guess I can end it with the conclusion to the cooking contest. I hope you guys like it, and I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, as long as it took for me to upload.**

**Rate (can you even give ratings on this site?) and review, like always, and I'll see you guys next chapter.**

**Dragonmaster, out.**


	9. Chapter 8: The 14th Victim

**A/N: So yeah. Here's this next one. ****I hope this doesn't end up as negative as I think it is going to be.**

**Enjoy.**

**Chapter 8: The 14th Victim**

* * *

[3rd Person POV]

_Sunday, March 8th_

It was time.

Time for Dr. Douchebag to start kidnapping again.

You would not have any way to know this without seeing the results, so when one of Arata's clones came in, covered in blood, carrying a similarly blood-soaked body bag and causing a ruckus, Sakura Kyoko, Tomoe Mami, Subaru Kazumi, Tachibana Souichirou and all the other captives knew that it had begun.

But this time was special. Especially for a certain redhead, whose blood ran cold when she saw the dismembered body of someone who had recently wormed their way into her affections.

She uttered but two words upon meeting with this terrifying sight.

"...Holy...shit..."

* * *

_An hour earlier..._

Kamijou Kyousuke didn't go through with it.

He didn't tamper with his childhood friends' memories.

The reason? Well, after consulting with Hachibey, whom he ran across along with Omincharao Obito that evening on the way home, the mint-green alien reasoned that Kyuubey would continue to contact them regardless if they recollect what he explained or not. Kyuubey's patience is seemingly boundless, and that, at least in regards to Madoka, this is to him a business opportunity that cannot be foregone.

And as such, Kyousuke gave up on it.

It was about six o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and Sayaka and him were on their way home from Hitomi's place, where they all were having a study session, since exams are in a week or so.

Sayaka yawns and throws her hands behind her head. "Don't tell Hitomi I said this, but that was kind of boring...Maybe it's because we were talking about school on the weekend."

The violinist shrugs. "Maybe it is."

They've walked home in bouts of silence and very short bursts of conversation, like the above two-line dialogue. Most of that can be attributed to a certain Incubator's Puella Magi 101 class back on Wednesday. Madoka and Sayaka had been quite subdued during school these past few days (more so than usual on the former's part) due to having quite a bit to think about. He's sure they've been laying themselves out at night thinking about the choices they should make, their motivations to contract, and the wish they should make and the opportunity costs, etc.

"Hey, Kyousuke?"

The girl looks up to him with serious curiosity.

"Why did you become a magical boy?"

Kyousuke is fairly sure that if he were drinking something, he would have spit it out all over her. Maybe. He says maybe because it is a query he really should have expected. And given how deep she is in magic now, he has no valid reason not to tell her.

"To protect the people I care about. Kinda cliché, don't you think?" He will note that this is not a complete truth, since he left out the part that that person is her, but in order to say that he would either have to lie like he was native to this timeline, or tell her that he's a time traveler in the flesh.

She shakes her head. "No, no. I think it's kinda noble, actually. Like a knight, or a hero. And some pirates, though rarely."

He chuckles. A single, dry chuckle, using not even a tenth of his breath. "Again with the knights, heroes, and pirates, huh?"

She pouts. "What's so wrong with liking what I like?"

Kyousuke waves it off. "Nothing, nothing."

"You only have to say 'nothing' once, Kyousuke. You're not struggling to reach a word count goal, you know."

"Hehe, sorry." He feels he should return the statement to her, since she said 'no' twice not even three sentences ago, but decides better; he would rather not be on the receiving end of one of her oft-nonsensical-yet-sensible arguments.

She nudges him. "Another question, then."

He raises an eyebrow, signaling for her to begin her inquiry.

"Why do you seem so opposed to Madoka and I becoming Puella Magi?"

_Urk._

"I mean, every time she and I spoke about it these past few days, you've made a sour face even though your words say you support us. "

"Ah..." _I let it show that much?_

The boy clears his throat and wipes the guilty look off of his face. "Well, it's just that, being involved with magic makes your life much harder and much more dangerous than you have any right experiencing," he says to her, adjusting the cuffs on his wrists and fiddling with the ring on his finger. "I guess I really don't want you guys thinking it's a game and getting hurt because of it."

Sayaka walks in silence beside him, not saying anything and looking thoughtful. Then she chuckles. "Hehe, well, I won't try and say I haven't thought of this a little like a game..."

Kyousuke's expression goes sour again, but before he can say anything back, Sayaka raises her hand to stop him. "But that's why you speak up."

He cocks an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"Don't you think it's the job of those with more experience to explain things to the newbies, and to set any misconceptions and misunderstandings straight?"

"Ah...yeah..."

"Then you know what your responsibility is, right?"

He doesn't answer, but the answer is understood even without words.

And, after this trip's record for longest burst of conversation is what's looking to be a record-breaking silence.

They walk in silence for what is definitely the longest time so far, until Kyousuke feels a sensation unsettlingly similar to the feeling he got before he found the girls in that labyrinth, the only difference with this one being that he knows exactly where the feeling's coming from.

And that would be the alley that the two of them just passed. Sayaka hasn't noticed since she's on the left side of him; the far side from the alleyway, but the tuxedo-clad masked man slumped in the space most definitely begged his attention.

However, this is something he cannot do in the presence of Sayaka. Exactly what he's about to do, who can say? But he'll be damned if he just let the dude lay there without getting what's coming to him and making him spill on where Kyoko and the others he has kidnapped are. All he can say is that he will most definitely be getting violent, and he doesn't want Sayaka to see him like that.

He pulls out his phone, feigning checking a text message.

"Oh, crap!" He puts his phone on, exhibiting panic from his body language and his voice, startling Sayaka.

"H-Holy balls, Kyousuke! What happened?"

"I forgot to pick up the groceries my mom asked me to get...good thing she reminded me, otherwise you might not have been able to see me again."

She raises an eyebrow. "Are you feeling okay?"

He's taken aback slightly by this question. Did she happen to catch him in the lie? "Yeah...why do you ask?"

"Well, it's just that you're not the type to forget things easily."

"Y-you think so?"

She scoffs. "More like I know so. Have you forgotten how far back we go, Kyousuke?"

_All the way back to the start of primary school, right? _"No, I haven't forgotten. It's kind of hard to. I mean, this _is _you we're talking about," he says in almost a teasing manner, garnering an faux-insulted "What's that supposed to mean?" from Sayaka. "Anyway, I'm going to head to the supermarket to pick up those groceries; you'll be fine on your own the rest of the way, right?" _From here, it's only about two minutes or so. You can pretty much see her apartment complex from here._

She's slow to answer, but eventually says, "Yeah, I'll be fine."

Accepting this answer, he spins on his heel and says, "See you tomorrow, then."

Sayaka shakes her head once. "Maybe not tomorrow; maybe today. It's gotten to the point that you shouldn't be too surprised if you find me at your place when you get back."

_Looks like I'm going to have to buy something when I'm done with the kidnapper, so I don't raise any suspicion._

"Alright. Not like I can stop you. Just make sure to let your parents know you're at my place."

She doesn't respond, instead she throws a hand in the air to wave to him, something he caught while looking over his shoulder. The boy returns throws a hand up into the air, returning the gesture, and then takes off at as fast as he can without looking suspicious to a battlefield. A _very narrow_ battlefield.

* * *

It has been seven minutes or so since Kyousuke left.

It had been about seven minutes since her childhood friend had left, and a certain blue-haired girl was suspicious.

_I know I said I would go home, but Kyousuke was acting too strange...all of that was totally unnatural. And the way he was practically jogging when he left...and let's not mention the fact that he went into that alleyway where I sure as heck saw someone wasted. Did he go to a rave party and collapse there on the way home?_

The girl cautiously approaches that alleyway, cautious yet slightly exasperated. If he was just going to help some savagely hammered human being who obviously could use the aid, he didn't have to be that secretive about it. This isn't even magic-related, for christ's sake.

Then she hears a metallic clang. A very loud one.

_That doesn't sound so much like helping to me..._

There's another clang, then another, and then things start getting vocal.

"Goddamn it, just stay still already!" A mature voice asks—definitely not Kyousuke's slightly girlish, pubescent one.

"Tell me where the others are and I wil—gah!" Kyousuke's voice is cut off by a thump, followed quickly by another one as he undoubtedly hits the brick wall. Thank goodness the two buildings creating the alley are abandoned and derelict; otherwise there would be a crowd of people around them, maybe containing the authorities, because what Sayaka is hearing right now is most definitely a fight. A fight on the magical side of the world.

There's a sound like a MMORPG's healing skill sound effect and then there's another thump, sounding farther away than what was the hit Kyousuke unmistakably took.

Sayaka, moving even slower than before in approaching the alleyway, begins biting her nails, now having the knowledge that her closest male friend was likely in a fight to the death.

_Come on, Kyousuke! I don't know who you're fighting, or rather, I hope you're not fighting who I think you're fighting, but I know you can wipe the floor with him!_

She silently urges the grey-haired boy on and starts to peek around the corner of the alley, the sounds of battle coming more into focus as she does so, but before she can even get a good look at the altercation a dark purple ringed ring opens up in front of her, and she finds herself looking at Kyousuke, covered in at least three places with his orange Creamsicle armor, and the masked man, holding a circular blade and looking a bit worse for wear, what with his now-ragged and increasingly bloody suit, the two going at it like there's no tomorrow. She can even see herself in the distance, her blue head of hair peeking out from behind the wall where the two combatants' attacks aren't obscuring her vision.

_Is this a...portal? Cool..._

She reaches out to the edge of the portal and feels it's solid. She then reaches her arm through and, though she was expecting her hand to disappear from view, was kind of psyched when she saw that when she reached her arm through that she couldn't see it come out of the other side.

_This is wavy and all, but why is this thing open in front of me?_

She pulls her hand out and inspects the anomaly further, until it closes on her suddenly and soundlessly.

_...What was the purpose of that thing?_

When she looks in the alley again, from the perspective humans are meant to view it, and is surprised by how close the fight has strayed in her direction. Granted, she wasn't that far away from the two combatants to begin with, but now she can hear the whistling of their blades along with their grunts, footsteps, and collisions.

Miki Sayaka is no expert on combat, but who the veteran in this fight is is as clear as day.

Despite being covered in wounds, the masked man has an air of confidence about him that is unsettling. His attacks are executed with precise, practiced movements, and the confidence she sees is not that of arrogance, but of certainty. Like the man _knows _he's going to emerge victorious.

On the other side of this conflict, the knight is carrying himself in a self-assured way, with a fatal type of confidence in his strikes: arrogance. That much Sayaka can recognize, being plenty confident and occasionally arrogant herself.

"Kyo—" She cuts herself off, having almost called out to him to tell him to be careful.

_Since he doesn't know I'm here, hearing my voice out of nowhere will throw him off his game...or something like that. _She starts to bite her nails again. _All I can do is hope he hasn't thrown caution to the wind yet..._

The masked man charges, slicing at Kyousuke's head, which he ducks under, then discards it in the arc, making it fly and get stuck in the wall, making their immediate area that much smaller. He then knees Kyousuke in the face while his head is down and brings a fist down on the stuck ringblade, snapping it in two and creating two separate ones: one stuck in the wall and another in his hand.

As Kyousuke's head is sent back from the knee, the man slips the ring around his neck and pulls as the knight gets sent back, something he most definitely would've died from if the magical armor he had wasn't there.

There's a loud crashing sound as the armor shatters and the blade does the same, spreading out like shrapnel from a grenade and stick in the walls.

The man creates some distance between the two by hopping back a step or two, yanking one of the rings out of the wall in the process. Due to putting up a portal right before the ring shattered, none of the shrapnel pieces eviscerated him, giving him some more time to fight, even though it doesn't look like the fight will go on much longer with how much blood he's lost. Where blood was first only around his scratches now almost completely covers him and his suit.

"Just give up. There's no use in fighting any longer; you'll just die."

The man spits on the floor and laughs. "You getting tired, kid?" There isn't an ounce of strain in his voice; he isn't breathing hard at all. In fact, he has an unnaturally calm tone, carrying the same confidently assured tone as earlier.

Kyousuke seems to take note of this, but doesn't say anything about it. "Not really. It's a perk of having a power like this; my stamina increases with everything else." He taps the breastplate; his only remaining piece of magical armor left, with him having lost his helmet a few moments ago.

"But you really won't give up?"

"Heh, of course not," he says with a voice full of spite, then reaches up to his face and grabs the mask on his face, and then tears it off, releasing its hold on his hair and revealing a pair of deep-red eyes. His previously slicked-back grey-brown hair (at least, that's how she remembered it when they first walked past him) is now laying down, unkempt and soaked with a mixture of blood and sweat.

Kyousuke sighs and readies himself in a fighting stance again. "Fine then. I'm ending this now, and you're going to be coming with me whether you like it or not." He rushes forward immediately after, sword arm outstretched.

_'CRASH!'_

Kyousuke suddenly stops, a rapier sticking out from his back.

_His_ rapier sticking out from _his _back.

However, the blade practically explodes along with the magical armor he was wearing, just like with the man's ringblade.

Kyousuke steps forward again, conjuring another rapier and raising it against the man.

The man, however, instead of being bothered by this, just grins. He grins maliciously, while looking _straight at_ Sayaka.

_W-what the...?_

She steps back, feeling extremely uncomfortable now that someone's taken notice of her.

She only feels worse when the man snaps his fingers and all the shrapnel from the shattered ringblade flies into the boy.

She squeezes her eyes shut when she sees rings starting to form where the shrapnel wounded him...

And she pukes when she peeks and sees every ring fly out rapidly, ripping the boy apart.

The only thing she can think to do is run after seeing that, and she does just that as fast as she can.

* * *

_Present time..._

"The _fuck_ do you mean, he had it coming to him," Arata screams in the clone's face, spraying saliva on its face. Yet the man didn't even flinch, only smiled smugly as he was manhandled.

"I was only teaching him a lesson that he was going to learn eventually."

"And you taught him that lesson by cutting him into pieces!"

_Whoa...I've never seen Dr. Douchebag so...bothered before. Not even when Kirika and I tried to kill him a few days ago..._

Kyoko stared on at the scene with interest and mild discomfort, especially considering that her eyes keep drifting back to the partially-healed body of Kamijou Kyousuke. Thankfully the boy is unconscious, not dead, since whatever that clone did to him managed to miss the boy's soul gem.

She's hoping to all things holy that he doesn't wake up yet, since he at the moment nothing but a torso. All that the collective healing efforts of the captives that could handle the gore amounted only to repairing the torso and reconnecting the head, and him waking up at this point isn't something she thinks even her steely heart can handle. After the healing efforts, the group had all disappeared under the guise of a break, pretending to either replenish their magic or more believably just to calm their nerves after seeing something so gruesome.

Kyoko herself is taking a break of the mixed variety, resting from the gore and replenishing her magic with a little black orb that reminds her of one of Keishoutto Kyousuke's Negaspheres, little black balls that he made back in the last timeline that were pretty much the Swiss Army knives of the magical world, capable of forming itself into anything within the bounds of imagination and even purifying soul gems, adding to its fuel to do just those things.

With her is the breast goddess Tomoe Mami, the drill-tailed girl's fellow upperclassman Kure Kirika, and that girl's probably love-interest Mikuni Oriko.

Only two of the four girls present are actually healing the boy; one of them is only there because the second girl mentioned is present, and she is still in the process of purifying her soul gem, looking at the exchange between clone and original a little ways away from the group of girls.

"What lesson did you even teach him," Dr. Douchebag asks, face in his hands in panic and exasperation.

"Not to underestimate you opponent."

Arata tenses up. "So you damn near killed him in order to teach him that?"

The grin on the clone widens. "More or less, yeah. At least I made sure to miss his soul gem."

The original lowers his voice and glowers at his artificial self. "He is 14 years old."

He shrugs. "You experienced worse at 10. He'll be fine."

Arata looks like he wants to respond with a right hook, but answers instead with taking a closer look at the clone's eyes. In case you didn't know, clones are supposed to be completely identical to the original, but this one has ruby red eyes in contrast to Arata's brown ones.

After a few seconds of close scrutiny, Arata touches the clone's head, and the artificial being fades into black words with the occasional red one and flies into Arata's jacket, however the red ones stay outside.

They remain only for a second longer until they melt to the floor and disperse, but Kyoko's fairly sure she saw 'malevolent', 'sadistic', and 'sociopathic' in the jumble of characters.

"So someone's been tampering with my clones, huh?"

_What are they, computer programs?_

Arata seems to finally notice her presence. "I take it you saw all of that?"

Kyoko nods, seeming to not yet be able to find her voice after twenty-five minutes or so of disuse.

"Well you don't need to worry about all of this; I'll remake the others to make sure no changes remain in the others."

She decides to test her voice. "T-there's more?" It's raspy; something not totally unexpected.

"Sure there are," he says matter-of-factly, slicking his now-slightly messed up hair back and into place. "There's six of them left, actually, all around the complex."

She chokes on her saliva.

_Six more? That means there was at one point eight Dr. Douchebags running around down here...where are all of them even hiding? What if one of them's a pervert, and was watching all of us while we were in the bathroom? What if they're _all_ perverts, and they remaining clones are gang-raping that Nico girl in the back as we speak?_

That was rude.

Actually, that wasn't even rude; it was savage. No fucks given to her or others' feelings. Even though she didn't say it, it still is terrible to think.

In front of her, Dr. Douchebag is wearing a look of half-hearted amusement. "I assure you, even if they were tampered with, my clones are decent enough not to do something as despicable as that."

Kyoko freezes, confused as to why he said that. When she realizes why, she frowns and says, "Stay out of my head, Dr. Douchebag, or I swear I fill find something else and strangle you with that." She still hasn't gotten her ribbon back, even though her last attempt at constricting his airways was more than half a week ago. Her hair still remains free-flowing in all its cumbersome crimson glory.

He chuckles dryly. "Duly noted." He then snaps his fingers, and seconds later tendrils of black letters flow into the room from behind her, circling around the girl and startling the shit out of her, the tendrils flowing into their master's suit jacket with their predecessors.

"Whoa!"

Kyoko jumps back out of the way, this time a single tendril of red words makes its way into the room in a much more violent fashion, blowing through the room at nightmarish speed and pulsating erratically. They line themselves up in front of the man and remain for less than a second, his eyes zooming down the lines and then the paragraph of adjectives makes like its predecessors and melts into the floor.

* * *

_Thirty minutes later..._

In...out...

She was panicking, and was taking deep breaths in an effort to calm herself down.

In...out...

She proceeds to mutter to herself in her sanctuary of a room, in the refuge of her bed.

In...out...

...

In...out...

"He'll be fine..." She repeats that to herself, over and over.

In...out...

There was a voice inside her head. A terrible voice, one speaking words she didn't want to hear.

In...out...

She curls up in a ball and squeezes her eyes shut. She can't tune it out.

In...out...

_'You could have helped him, you know.'_

_...How?_

In...out...

_'Anything would have sufficed, really. Anything you did could've given the battle another outcome. Instead you stood and watched, and now the childhood friend you hold so dear is now most likely dead.'_

_..._

She's fairly certain there's a trope that applies to what's happening to her right now. Both to a truth that someone does not want to hear _and _to the mental breakdown she's aware enough to know she's going through. The first type slips her mind, but the latter is called a Heroic Blue Screen of Death. Something like that.

In...out...

In...out...

In...out...in...out

In. Out. In. Out.

In. Out. In out.

In out in out in out in out in out in out

In out in out in out in out inoutinoutinoutinoutin—

Calm.

She opens her eyes.

She's no longer in the fetal position.

She's standing up.

Standing up in front of her closet.

Perfectly calm.

Unsettlingly calm.

The calm before the storm.

In...out...

She knows that following this calm will be the biggest nervous breakdown she will ever experience. She can feel it in her bones.

Her body already took measures against that, however.

For in her hand is a toy gun with a corkscrew bullet. And though it is only a toy, she found out a _long_ time ago that that corkscrew hurts like balls.

_Oh no._

In...out...in...out...

The gun finds itself pointed at her forehead, cocked and ready to fire.

She doesn't know if she's prepared for this. This is not something she should be dealing with. What if she's like Nakai Hisao and has a hidden heart condition, and the shock gives her a heart attack? She doesn't even know if her parents will notice until morning, since they don't check on her often out of respect of privacy, so she could be dead by the time her parents get home...

Inoutinoutinoutinoutinoutinoutinout—

_'POP'_

_'SMACK'_

In—

"FREAKING OWWWWWWW!"

Out...

* * *

She's fairly certain that no one will come check on her. Her mom decided conveniently to break her pinkie toe on the doorjamb at around the time she got into the house, and even though they left almost three hours ago, they're still at the hospital, meaning the only one she disturbed were her oft-grumpy but uncaring neighbors.

She's fairly certain she doesn't have arrhythmia, so that's a plus as well.

However, she's also fairly certain she will lapse back into her Blue Screen of Death at any time, so she figures that she needs to do something about it right now.

In...out...

"I need to tell somebody."

That was the solution she reached.

But why is it that, sometimes, when solutions are reached, new problems arise?

The problem that has just been born was _who _she should tell.

There are a couple of people she could talk to.

One: the police. She should notify them that Kyousuke's been kidnapped, but when they ask the circumstances what will she tell them? 'Oh, he got into the fight with the kidnapper and got cut into pieces.' That's pretty useless, and kind of really an assumption on her part. She didn't see much, really. When the rings left his body, she saw body parts have a space between them and the rest of the body that of course was out of place, and the rest was left to her imagination. She likes to think she has a rather active imagination, she takes pride in it, really, so imagine how terrified her mind's vivid conjurations of his state made her.

She shudders. She knows she'll have to tell the authorities eventually, but she thinks there are people who might be able to do more than the police if they knew.

She pulls out her phone and starts scrolling through contacts, huddled up in her bedsheets and using a hand to scroll and another to massage her throbbing forehead. _I can't go to school with this on my head...maybe I'll put a band-aid on it..._

Her eyes land first on his own name.

Skipped. Missing in action.

Fuyudo Yuuta.

Useless. Irrelevant to this scene of events. Not even really in her circle of friends.

Kaname Junko.

Skipped. Useless in this situation.

Kaname Madoka.

Skipped. Useless in this situation, and she doesn't want to worry the girl any more than she is right now.

Keishoutto Yukiko.

Skipped. Has superhuman tendencies, but those are useless if we can't track down the man.

Keishoutto Kyousuke.

...

In...out...

_Kyuubey did say that Kyousuke was contracted by rebels or something. A bunch of boys. Maybe Kyou is one as well._

In...out...

She figures she might as well find out.

She calls the number, the dial tone reverberating loudly in the apartment's eerie silence. The only sounds are the phone and her forced steady breathing. Her lungs feel like they're only taking in half the amount of air they should.

In...out...

On the fourth ring, he picks up, sounding tired.

_"Hello?"_

"H-hey, Kyou." She choked at the start. This conversation looks like it's going to fray her nerves quite a bit. The growing pit in her stomach is a testament to that.

_"What's up, Sayaka? You sound nervous."_

Spot on. "...Well...stuff."

There's a brief silence._ "Please don't tell me you called for this...lack of a reason."_

_Might as well cut to the chase. I have to tell him one way or another._

In...out...in...out...

"K—" Her throat constricts again. Her body really doesn't want her to speak.

In...out...in...out

"Kyousuke'sbeenkidnapped." It all comes out like an automatic spray of bullets. Punctuation and language skills seem to be temporarily compromised.

There's another, longer silence. No sound except for her own meticulous breathing and whatever that annoyingly repetitive sound is in the background on Kyou's side. Something like knocking.

"Aren't you going to answer that?"

_"Nah. It's just Nanime. I've no obligation to let her into my room when she has no legitimate reason to be in here."_

He yells something to his sister, something inaudible. The knocking in the background stops.

_"Anyway, can you repeat what you said?"_

In...out...

This time, she keeps control over her mouth so everything doesn't rush out.

"Kyousuke's been...kidnapped."

Another throat constriction, another silence, except the mood has gotten noticeably heavier.

_"He's been kidnapped, you say?"_

She nods, but forgets she's having a phone conversation. "Yeah. He got into a fight with a masked man in a suit with a ringblade and they fought for a bit and then their weapons exploded and he got hit with the shards and they grew into rings and then they tore him apart and I ran and had a breakdown and now I'm here talking to you about 2 hours later and hoping you can do something about it."

In...out...

It seems her punctuation skills have become temporarily unavailable yet again.

_"You're hoping I can do something about it?"_

"Mhmm."

Another pause. _"Well, you're getting your hopes up for nothing."_

In...out...

She sighs. She's not surprised. After all, she didn't call for him to do something about it; it already happened. She called for the sake of telling someone what happened.

"I expected as much..."

She thinks of something she's seen lately; a pattern, more or less. She's seen who she knows to be the chief of police around school ever since the kidnappings started, and she's noticed that Kyousuke's perverted apprentice Kobayashi Katsuo always drags him off and disappears for a while with him. Coincidence? She thinks not.

She voices this, asking, "Don't you disappear with that Kobayashi boy whenever the chief of police shows up at our school?"

Yet another pause. There seems to be an unlimited supply of them. _"Yeah. What of it?"_

"Does that mean you're connected to the police in some way, or are you three just a trio of perverted, hormonal men?" The tightness in her throat is gone. She's guessing being able to insult Erosuke helps in that regard.

That's right. This is Erosuke she's talking to, one of the lower life forms on this planet, maybe even the lowest. Why should she be wary when talking to him?

_"Mhmm. An intern, or something like that. I'm not sure of the word. But we've been working on cracking this kidnapping case for a while now."_

"I take it, since it's still going on, you've succeeded in jack squat?"

_"More or less, yeah." _There's shuffling in the background, and a soft thump. _"Now, I'm going to write some things down."_

"Okay..."

In...out...

He clears his throat. _"Alright, we've established that Kyousuke's been kidnapped. Describe the man for me again."_

In...out...

"Well, he had brownish-grey hair, wore a suit and a white theater mask, and used a ringblade to fight Kyousuke."

She can hear the scribbling of his pen or pencil on the pad in the background of the following silence.

_"Alright—"_

A fit of a heavy cough interrupts him.

"Are you okay, Kyou?"

_"Uh-huh. Sorry. I just got a really bad feeling all of a sudden." _He coughs once more. _"A-anyway, when today did this happen?"_

In...out...

She rewinds her brain a few hours, using her internal clock to steer. "Er...around six-ish."

He begins his scribbling again. _"And where did this happen?"_

"By my apartment complex. You know where the lady that was always giving out socks to the kids on the block lives?"

_"...Yeah. I do. Bless her ancient heart."_

"I-it was in the alleyway between her house and her neighbor's old bakery."

Silence filled with scribbling. That's bad. If it's quiet, she'll start thinking again. If she starts thinking, she'll be a stain on the sidewalk a few stories below, leaving a neat surprise for her parents. She figures she's going to need to shove that cork back in the gun and let it rip once again, yet again disturbing her neighbors and leaving a bigger sore spot on her forehead.

She eyes the gun on the bed. She'd rather not have to experience that again.

She would like to postpone that measure for as long as possible. Time for another safety breath.

In...out...

_"Alright. There's nothing else to tell here, is there? Judging by how shaky your voice was when you first started talking, you high-tailed it home, right?"_

No answer. She doesn't really need to.

In...out...

_"And have you told anyone else yet?"_

"N-no..."

In...out...in...out...

Oh crap.

_I'm slipping..._

In...out...in...out...inout...

_"Alright, all the better. We kids don't know how to break difficult news to others. I'll let the police chief know, and we'll go and talk to him at school on tomorrow, okay?"_

Her hands move on their own, stuffing the cork back into the gun and cocking it back.

She points it at her forehead.

"Okaygotittalktoyoulaterbye!"

Inoutinoutinoutinoutinoutinoutinoutinoutinoutinoutinout—

_'POP'_

_'SMACK'_

In—

"SON OF A—"

She clamps her hands on her mouth. It's enough to disturb her neighbors with the screams; but to do it with a curse word? Unfathomable.

Out...

She rubs her forehead vigorously. The impending breakdown and suicide attempt has been averted.

It's safe to say she's calmed down.

* * *

**A/N: And that's that. The 14th victim has been confirmed. And thus ends Dr. Douchebag's temporary leave of absence from the kidnapping business. Though I'll say this was a rather grisly return to it, though, one that puts a new, unknown factor into the midst of things. I'm kind of excited to write these next chapters, now that most of the shenanigans have been moved aside to make room for some real action. (I say most because, for better or for worse, Kyoko, Nanime, and the Reshigi twins remain important characters in this story, and none of at least the first two's scenes are ever completely serious.)**

**And I apologize for lying and saying I'd make the Mami vs Souichirou cookoff part of this chapter; but I just couldn't fit it in. There were no scenes with a light enough mood to insert it; this chapter was all business, more or less. Especially so on the victims' front, which is normally our mood relief squad; that was probably the part that offered the most in terms of story, introducing the sinister foreign element. Again, sorry for the unintentional lie I told.**

**Anyway, rate and review and stuff like that, and I'll see you guys next chapter with another "Detective Work" heading.**


	10. Chapter 9: Detective Work IV

**A/N: Another one in the "Detective Work" series, all three installments prior to this one having more than 10k words, and therefore all three combined having half the word count of this whole story, sitting at 30,829 words in this 66,534 word fic. To think that The Beginning Arc didn't reach this point until Chapter 23 out of 27, with 65,360 words out of 98,753...I feel like I've progressed a lot since the the first installment. **

**Anyway, with more "Detective Work" comes more of the Kobayashi Father-Son Duo and Hideki, possibly even Hachibey as well. However, regardless of that, this is Sayaka's turn at the forefront of the story, so less of Kyou's indecisive shenanigans and more of Sayaka's...Sayaka-ness to throw into the impending investigation.**

**And so, without further ado, read along and I hope you e****njoy.**

**Chapter 9: Detective Work IV**

* * *

[3rd Person POV]

_Monday, March 9th..._

She sits upright in bed, rubbing her tired eyes and her still-sore forehead. She didn't sleep well last night, and she feels that most would sympathize knowing what she went through the previous day.

Perhaps that's just the part of her seeking comfort, trying to find people who won't blame her like she was blaming herself.

Kyou did nothing of the sort last night when she called him. Isn't it a man's job to comfort a girl in pain? Perhaps she would have actually slept if he'd done that.

The self-destructive voice in her head kept her awake all night and almost drove her over the edge again, meaning she had to let loose on her forehead again to calm down, again scaring the crap out of her neighbors and her then-returned parents.

She huddles up in her bed, wrapping her sleeved arms around the knees of her bare legs and resting her chin on them. She had woken up an hour before her alarm is set to go off, and she can't go back to sleep, so she opts to wallow there in silence.

Her inner demon speaks. _'You sure you want to do that?'_

On second thought, she thinks she ought to get out of bed. Maybe get ready for school ahead of time and play a gameor something. Anything that can keep her from thinking and straying to those same fatal tracks of her train of thought; the one that leads to a break in the bridge and drop into the void that is despair.

Despair...

In...out...

"Pfft..."

She remembers an anime she watched where a teacher was constantly 'despairing' over trivial things and attempting suicide, only to be stopped by his students. Over. And over. And over again. Until the creator probably understood that it was getting old.

"Hehe."

She gets out of bed, feeling lighter, and heads to her bathroom.

She enters the room and flicks the light switch. It wasn't particularly big, but it served its purpose with a little room to spare. To her left is the a door, behind which is the toilet, sink, and the cabinet with toiletries, bath salts, and cleaning materials.

Straight ahead is the bath and the shower, the nozzle lying discarded on the floor beside the stool and washbucket, courtesy of one of her parents forgetting to put it back up last night. Or maybe it was her. She's not particularly sure.

On a shelf under where the shower head is _supposed_ to be mounted lay various shampoos, conditioners, and body washes, some containers of which have held no soapy fluid for many weeks. She figures she should do something about that. Later.

On the right wall is a towel rack. Nothing special, besides the fact that it has fallen at least three times in the past month and a half.

She turns left, into the bathroom and takes off her pajama shirt, tossing it into the hamper and then going to work on her teeth.

Two minutes.

Two minutes spent focusing on the erratic motions of her hand, slow and methodical and then rapid yet still meticulous, used to distract her from the voice in her head.

She spits in the sink. The fresh, minty taste left in her mouth and smell left lingering in the air sharpens her mind and serves as a cue to whip out the washcloth to take care of her face.

After some scrubbing, she searches her face for any other lingering grime. Satisfied that she got it all, she opens the drawer and looks at the grooming utensils: a comb and a brush. She reaches for the comb and proceeds to deal with the shameful display of bed head she has.

She starts humming a song. La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin by Claude Debussy. It's been stuck in her head for a while now, ever since Kyousuke told her that was the next piece he would be performing, hours before the accident all of those months ago.

...ever since Kyousuke told her...

...since Kyousuke told...

...Kyousuke...

_*shudder*_

She prepared for this. She picked the comb over the brush for a reason.

She pulls up her bangs and fingers the prongs on the comb.

She then proceeds to rub the prongs of the comb against her sore forehead at a very, _very _high speed.

"Owowowowowowowowow FREAKING _OW_!"

She flings the comb into the drawer and takes her washcloth, holding the soothing cool and wet towel to her forehead.

After a few moments of this, she walks out of the room, back into the main shower room, and realizes that she may well be the one responsible for the discarded shower head.

She took a shower last night after she got off the phone with Kyou, and her thoughts eventually drifted back to the violinist. Which meant the closest object to her was used to break her out of her fall into the Event Horizon.

She drifts over to the shower head and puts it back in its place, then exits the bathroom, making her way to the kitchen to make both her breakfast and lunch.

Breakfast is nothing special. She's heard all kinds of lectures on eating a balanced breakfast from the various PE teachers she's had, her homeroom teachers, her doctors, the sports club presidents (when she had been a part of them), her _mom_.

However, she normally just has something like a bowl of cereal because it allows her more time to do what she needs or wants to in the morning, like homework she didn't finish the previous night, or simply if she wants to play one of her fighting games before she leaves.

What she needs to do is clear her head of last night's events, at least until she reaches the school and has to go wherever Kyou goes with that Katsuo boy to talk to the chief of police, and so she will play _SoulCalibur 5 _while she eats, until she has to leave.

_Wait..._

_What if they don't talk business when they leave, but talk about their preferences in women or even worse...g...gang..._

She clears her throat, simultaneously clearing her head and thinking that Kyoko might have rubbed off on her a bit, and pours herself a bowl of corn flakes. She walks over to the pantry to pull a banana off of the bunch to add to her breakfast and carries it to her room, where she sits the "meal" by her bed on a chair and turns on the television and her _PlayStation 3, _taking a controller and sitting on her bed.

Taking a bite of her cereal, she goes to arcade mode and selects Siegfried. Someone's about to get destroyed this morning.

* * *

She's 3/4ths of the way to school, and thankfully she managed to contain herself around Madoka and Hitomi. When they asked where Kyousuke was, she took a deep breath,

In...out...

...and said he had "gotten sick, or something like that".

With that, the two girls don't press the matter and the bluenette enjoys the rest of her walk in faux-peace, half-heartedly fooling around with the two of them until they reach school, where a familiar purple ponytail awaits her.

"Alright, I'll see you guys later." She breaks off of the group and waves at the two of them. They wave back, confused, but after seeing who she's meeting, a look of horror and a look of disgust covers the two faces. You can guess which expression goes with whom.

The two turn back to the bluenette and smile, and advance up the stairs without her.

"Okay, Erosuke; let's get to business. You do anything funny, and I'll kick your babies up into your throat."

He looks at her blankly. "Good morning to you too, Sayaka."

She ignores that and motions to him. "You going to lead the way or not?"

He gives her a sidelong glance. "You're that eager to start?"

"I'd rather get this over with. Let's just go now."

He brushes his hair out of his face and shrugs. "Okay." He turns on his heel and begins up the stairs to wherever he meets up with Katsuo.

* * *

After a bit of walking, they end up in front of the Computer Club room.

He knocks on the door. "Oi, Katsuo. You in there?"

There's no response, but in a few moments the door opens, revealing a tired-looking Katsuo with very, _very _messy blue hair and his near-identical father, albeit a lot tidier, the latter of which is pounding away at a keyboard on the Club President's desk. "Good morning, you two," greets the older Kobayashi.

"Morning, Yuuga-san," Kyou responds.

Sayaka does likewise, "Good morning, Kobayashi-san."

They hear the door close behind them, and Sayaka looks behind to see an absence of Katsuo.

She hooks a thumb at the door. "Where's he going?" The question was fair game to the two remaining boys.

Kyou shrugs, but when Yuuga opens his mouth the two turn to him. "He's going to fetch someone. He asked for a few moments to change into something more...'appropriate', for our occasion. I daresay he has a knack for kidding at the wrong time."

He speaks as if it's someone they should know, but from the knowing look on Kyou's face, it seems she's the one left out of the loop. She looks expectantly at Kyou, expecting him to answer, but he just shrugs and pulls up a seat.

_Okay, I guess I'll find out when he gets here._

She opts to take a seat as well while she waits, but she doesn't pull her into the center of the floor like Kyou did. She wouldn't feel too comfortable being in the center, like that, even though this whole meeting was called on her behalf.

In...out...

_I wonder who else is coming, though..._

"Nakazawa Hideki, here to shed some light on this case!"

This exclamation came obviously from the person named, who just threw open the door and was dressed in...not the school uniform. He was wearing a black suit, with a matching _Kangol _hat, white gloves, monocle over his left eye, and had a pipe hanging loosely in his right hand.

"What." Not a question, but a statement of befuddlement leaves her mouth.

"Oh my," is what leaves Yuuga's mouth.

"What are you doing, Hideki?" Kyou asks.

He clears his throat. "Well, I figured since we—ack!"

There's an audible thump as he's forced through the doorway, a much tidier being as his uniform is fixed, hair back into it's usual slick state, his glasses back into place on his face. "He's just being an idiot. Now, let's get started, shall we?"

She sees something wrong here. Nakazawa should _definitely _not be here. There's no reason someone as insignificant as him should be in here.

_'Did you forget his childhood friend was kidnapped, too?'_

_No, I didn't, it's just that that happened like, two weeks ago, so why is he here now?_

_'Ask.'_

"Hey," she raises her hand to catch everyone's attention, "why is Nakazawa-san here, exactly? You didn't tell me he would be here." She directs the last part at the effeminate boy sitting in the center of the room.

He opens his mouth with what she can only guess is an excuse, but he decides better and resigns to the truth, as displayed by him hanging his head and sighing.

"Alright," he turns the chair towards her as Katsuo shuts the door and pushes Hideki further into the room, taking another out-of-the-way seat in a row opposite of hers. "So, before we begin, you know how Kyousuke's a magical boy, right?"

She nods. "Yeah, obviously."

He clears his throat. "Well, Hideki and I are as well. Cue shock, yada yada. And Hideki here is our big bad leader. The unofficial one, at least."

She looks once again at the brown-haired boy, who's tidying up his suit and following everyone else's example, dragging a seat from one of the rows up beside Kyou.

_Is this guy really qualified to lead anyone?_

"I know what you're thinking, Miki-san, but I assure you that when it comes to stuff like this I'm all business." Hideki interjects into her thoughts, throwing her off a bit and maybe even pissing her off. She doesn't know if he's capable of reading minds, but it's safe to assume it. He does have magic after all.

She glares at him. She doesn't like that magical people can invade her privacy when they feel like it. "Stay out of my head, Nakazawa."

He raises an eyebrow and grins. "I didn't need to get into your head. Facial expressions speak volumes."

She glares at him again. "Stop reading me then."

"Stop making it so easy to."

Yuuga claps his hands. "Well, now that we're all here, how about we start?" When he hears no objection, he motions to his son. "I've already had Katsuo type up a report. I'd like you to check it to make sure it's all correct, Miki-kun."

Katsuo pulls out a bag and rummages through it. He takes out a folder, then takes a paper out and hands it to Hideki, who hands it to Kyou, and finally it lands in her hands.

In...out...

She reads it through. After a few moments, she's satisfied that it's all correct and hands it back to Kyou, who puts it through the whole progression again. "No problems there."

Yuuga nods his approval. "Good, good. Now, restate to us all what happened."

"Ah..."

She gulps. Now for the whole reason she came there.

In...out...

"Well, yesterday Kyousuke and I were heading back home from Hitomi's place. We were having a study session because the end of term assessments are coming up. We left at around six o'clock to go home."

She pauses, and Yuuga motions for her to continue. Hideki is looking at her intently, all sense of jest having up and left him. It's disturbing how quickly he changes attitudes.

In...out...

"When w-we were most of the way home, we saw a man in a grey suit and a white theater mask leaned up against an alley wall. I noticed the man but chose to ignore him, because he seemed kind of drunk to say the least. Kyousuke had the same idea, however, and when we walked for a bit afterwards he said he had an errand to do for his mom, so he went back."

"And he went into the alleyway with the man," Yuuga asks, and she nods.

"And that man was drunk in no way?" Kyou contributes to the conversation, even though it was something that could have gone without being asked.

"Didn't seem like it."

In...out...

"The man fought with a blade in the shape of a ring, and he could make portals with it and stuff."

Hideki claps his hands. "There we go! That's what I wanted to hear!"

"H-huh?" She looks at the boy in confusion at his outburst.

"That is most definitely the kidnapper I came across last month."

"It is?" _He met up with the kidnapper before and came back? Maybe he really is leader material..._

Hideki stands up from his seat and moves it back to where he got it from. "Mhmm. So guess what we're doing after school?"

Again, Sayaka seems like the only one out of the loop. "W-what?"

Nakazawa opens his mouth, but then points to Yuuga. "If you will, Yuuga-san."

The man clears his throat. "We're going to the crime scene, of course."

* * *

Sayaka is dead on her desk.

She was laying her head down on her desk with her eyes closed during math class, of course not asleep. How could she sleep with the turbulence in her mind right now?

Said math teacher, Akutagawa-sensei, is renowned around the school for her strictness, and when she saw her doing something other than paying attention to her largely boring class, she got the punishment Kyoko had gotten almost every day from her and had a textbook dropped on her head.

She's pretty sure that that isn't allowed, and on top of that it may damage the book should she fail to keep it from falling off of the desk, so she could get the administration to take action, but in the event that she stays she will make the bluenette's life even more hellish.

She feels presences around her, expectant ones at that, but she doesn't move to appease them. She knows who they are.

"Sayaka-chan," Madoka says first, "are you ready to go home?"

She looks up and blows her hair out of her face. "Sorry, but can you guys go home without me today? I have some stuff to take care of."

"Hmm? And what is that, Sayaka-chan?"

She lets her eyes drift to the approaching brown-haired Nakazawa, looking cheery as ever, and the pink and green-haired girls frown.

Hitomi leans down, whispering "Why are you meeting with this walking comic relief?"

Sayaka shrugs and comes up with the first lie she can think of. "I'm going to go tea—"

"Why are you meeting with Sayaka-chan, Nakazawa-kun?"

She notices the boy shuffling behind her and feels hands squeezing her shoulders. "We're going on a date!"

She can practically hear the cheeky grin on his face as a wave of disgust comes over her. "If you can think of what we're going to do as a date, you may need a psychiatrist."

He laughs sheepishly. "Oh come on, Sayaka-chan! I was just kidding!"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't address me so familiarly. We're acquaintances at best, _Nakazawa-kun_." She emphasizes the way she addressed him to stress the distance in their relationship.

He sighs. She gets up and turns to him and one look at his face can tell her that the boy has sobered up. The mischievous look in his eyes has been replaced with a serious one; the smile on his face has changed into a set line, straying not one bit into a smile. The speed at which he switched gears is almost scary.

_What is he, bipolar?_

The other two girls present notice as well.

"Are you okay, Nakazawa-kun," Madoka asks, a look of confused worry on her face.

"Mhmm. It's just time to get serious," he responds, and motions to Sayaka. "Shall we get to business, Miki-san?"

She looks at him warily and steps away from the safety of her two friends, her chair collapsing as she does. "Y-yeah. Let's go." She turns back to her friends. "See you guys tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah..." Hitomi looks suspiciously at the two of them, but neither objects nor presses the matter as the mismatched duo leaves the classroom.

They walk in silence, Hideki exuding a peculiar air of seriousness and authority and Sayaka expressing half-interested, half-dismissive concern for the boy. It's so out-of-character for him, and everyone knows that out-of-character behavior is serious business.

The physical silence continues while the mental din begins and ramps up.

In...out...

_Is he okay? Is this what he's like when he's in leader mode...?_

Her curiosity gets the better of her.

In...out...

"H-hey, Nakazawa-san? Are you feeling okay?" She stutters. The discontinuities in her speech are beginning to get on her nerves.

"Hm?" He looks over to her with mild surprise on his face, then seems to register what she said. "Oh, you asked if I was okay?"

She nods and flips her bag over her shoulder. "Mhmm. You look...irritated. Distressed. You're not your usual goofy self; did I go too far in the classroom or something?" Her voice decides to release her words in a smoother manner now. Good, good.

"Well, I _am_ pissed, but not at you. " He rolls his shoulders and switches hands with his bag as they exit the school. "What you said in the classroom was reasonable; what Kyousuke did wasn't."

"What do you mean? Would you rather Kyousuke let him go and let the kidnapper possibly abduct more people?"

Hideki glances at her out of the corner of his eye. "No, he did right in at least occupying the kidnapper. He did, however, neglect to inform us, _his teammates_, one of which is his leader who he is pretty much required to listen and report to. If the thirteen other victims, twelve of which were magical girls and some pretty strong ones at that, were taken by him so easily, what chance did he think he had?"

"Ah..." There's a point. A point she can't really say something in response to. With this new information, she backs out of the conversation, letting physical silence fall over them and mental uproar ensue as they proceed to the crime scene.

Among the mental uproar is a question.

"Hey, Nakazawa-san?" She turns around to walk backwards, dropping both of her arms behind her back and clasping them there. "If that kidnapper was so strong, how were you able to get away from him?"

He glances sidelong at her. "A little bit of skill and a shit ton of luck."

She can't tell if that's modesty or if that's just what he believes happened, but either way it was a feat in and of itself. Is the boy beside her really that powerful...?

"Anyway," he interjects her thoughts as she turns back around, "do you have anything else you want to ask before I make you lead me the rest of the way?"

_H-huh? _"N-no, I don't think so..." _Wait...maybe I do... _"Who all is going to be at the crime scene?"

Again with the sidelong glance. "Hmm..." He holds up a hand, presumably to count off the ones present "Well, the Father-Son Kobayashis are going to be there...and Kyou's mom, and that's about it."

_Five people, huh...But what about Kyou?_

"What about Kyou?"

He waves dismissively. "He's going to be taking Kaname-san and Shizuki-san home, then talking to one of his magical boy seniors." For some reason, when he says that, his voice wavers, and she can see him back in his normal persona.

He stops in place and sighs, so suddenly that she takes another two steps before she can stop herself. "What's wrong," Sayaka asks.

"Looks like he made a detour before doing his job; no fault of his own." He turns around and waves.

_What the he—_

She turns around and has her train of thought derailed. For behind them, some distance down the street, was Kyou, looking to be huffing and puffing in the distance.

But that wasn't the part that got her.

What got her was the head of pink and head of green failing at concealing themselves behind a lamppost.

"Ma—"

A hand finds her way to her mouth.

_Salty...no, wait, what the hell?_

"Forgive my physicality, but I'm going to have to ask you to keep quiet for a moment."

He snaps his fingers, and a couple of muffled sounds come out of her mouth as she sees two rings fly from Kyou and suspend themselves behind Madoka and Hitomi. And then she sees what looks like censor bars rush forward from Kyou's hands, go through the rings and stay behind the two girls, and then they _grab the girls around the waist_ and _yank them through the rings._ But instead of them falling through the rings, they disappear completely.

_A portal...the kidnapper uses portals too...coincidence?_

She looks warily at the boy covering her mouth. "Mmf zhf ffm ffv mm!"

He promptly removes his hand as she watches Kyou walk into a ring as well, and then the two rings fly towards Hideki and fasten themselves around his wrists, shrinking down and widening out to fit. You couldn't even tell they used to be huge ringblades if you had never seen them beforehand.

She wipes his (probably imaginary) hand residue off of her mouth and asks, "Where did you send them?"

His eyebrow raises. "The girls or Kyou?"

"Both."

"Well," he turns around and starts moving again in the direction of the crime scene, even though he said he'd be making her lead soon. "I sent the two girls back to their homes, and Kyou to our base of operations. Rest assured; none of them got hurt."

The wary look on her face persists, but she accepts the answer. As she stares intently at the boy, she says, "Alright, but if I find out something happened to any of them, it's over for you."

He laughs, which irritates her to no end. "Yes, yes, I understand."

"You better,..."

_Wait..._

"Or else..."

_Something feels different..._

"I..."

She looks around.

"Whoa!" She looks at Hideki, who raises an eyebrow again, then points to the alleyway beside them that is the crime scene, signaled as so by the police tape surrounding the area. "When did we..."

He hooks a thumb behind them, and sees a ringblade behind them, looking into the street they were just on.

"A-ah..."

She sees the visual distort, almost looking closer as something flies out of the ring to Hideki—a shrunken ring that fastens itself on his wrist again, and the ring in her vision flies and affixes itself to his other wrist.

Three heads peek out of the alleyway, bodies stack on top of each other in a way that reminds her of anime characters spying on others.

"Oh, you're here earlier than expected, Nakazawa-kun, Miki-san," Katsuo says as he breaks off from the middle of the pillar, pushing his glasses up on his face.

"Yeah. I was thinking that Miki-san would want to get this over with as quickly as possible," Hideki answers, and advances towards them into the alleyway. She follows suit.

Hideki claps his hands. "Alright, Katsuo-san, Kobayashi-san, you two were here all day. What did you pick up?"

The father speaks up. "Nothing but signs of a struggle and Kamijou-kun's blood. There's no sign that the kidnapper was ever here."

She looks around at the bloodied, severely scratched alleyway and cringes, but also wonders how nothing here can lead them to the kidnapper. How do you only clean up your own blood without cleaning up the person's it was mixed with.

Hideki holds his hand palm up and a ring she never noticed he was wearing glows and turns into a light grey, almost silver gem in his palm.

"Hmm...The only trace of magic here belongs to Kyousuke..." He puts his gem away and sighs. "Looks like the perp did a good job of cleaning up his mess."

A certain purple-haired individual makes herself known. "But how would he go about cleaning it up so thoroughly," Yukiko asks.

"Well, there is one way..." Hideki seems like he's speaking to himself rather than the group. When he sees everyone looking at him, though, he decides to elaborate. "When I was fighting the kidnapper when he kidnapped Maria, one was doing all of the fighting while another was writing stuff in a little journal. Whenever he stopped writing, something unexplainable happened, like tentacle monsters sprouting from the ground and stuff. He might have used whatever power that notebook possesses to clean up all traces of his presence at the scene."

"So what," Sayaka starts, "he's a reality warper or something?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I haven't seen him do anything _huge_, per se," he opens his arms wide for emphasis, "but he certainly has the makings of one."

_If that's true, wouldn't that mean he pretty much just _let_ Nakazawa-kun go, rather than him getting away himself? Or is Nakazawa-kun..._

She's not sure where she's going with this, but she has to ask. "Hey—"

Hideki interrupts her before she can get her question out. "Miki-san, did the kidnapper have any interaction with you?"

"W-what?" She's taken back by the sudden query. "Y-yeah. He opened a portal for me to watch them fight, and he grinned at me right before he..."

In...out...

"K—"

Yukiko holds up a hand. "It's okay, Sayaka-chan. You don't have to say it."

Sayaka sighs and bows slightly in thanks to her elder.

"Ah..." Hideki makes a noise and sighs. "Well, I have an idea at least of what the kidnapper was trying to accomplish in his messing with you."

The whole group looks on in serious curiosity as the boy continues.

"This is a play on your sense of justice, Miki-san."

"H-huh?"

"Your sense of justice is pretty strong for someone in this age. By having you see what happened to Kyousuke, he most likely was trying to spur emotions in you to get you to—Oh, looks like I won't have to be the one to explain it."

The three humans present look at him in confusion while the two monsters look towards the far entrance of the alleyway with little emotion.

"You can come out, you know. We won't bite," Yukiko says, although there is minimal bitterness present in her voice.

Moments later, a white creature with beady magenta eyes pads into view.

"K-Kyuubey!" Sayaka exclaims. She did not expect to see him here, like, at all.

_"Hello, Miki Sayaka, Keishoutto Yukiko, Nakazawa Hideki, Kobayashi Yuuga and Katsuo."_

"What are you doing here, Kyuubey," Sayaka asks in wonder. "I was beginning to think you were dead!"

_"Well, I took note of your situation, and came to offer you something that can assist you in your endeavors, should you use it right."_

"Oh?" She was getting curious _and _excited at the same time. _Something to help...that's awesome! I had no clue the little guy was so generous!_ "And what would that be?"

_"I am here to offer you a contract." _It moves closer, flicking its tail randomly as it approaches. _"In exchange for a wish, I can turn you into a magical girl."_

* * *

**A/N: Here's Kyuubey to ruin the fun. And here I am to break a trend. After three 10k+ Detective Work chapters, this one ends up a little more than half the length of the others. Way to go, DM. Way to go.**

**Anyway, that's a wrap. Sayaka has mostly recovered from her panic attack, and has some light shed on at least _why_ the kidnapper put an effort into interacting with her. It's a diabolical plan, if you all have it figured out what it is. The appearance of Kyuubey=an attempt at making a contract. Always. No exception.**

**Also, Nakazawa Hideki. Taking the whole story so far into perspective, he has the least known about him besides the enigmatic Reshigi twins. A mystery about him has arised: his only power is portal transportation; just how strong can he be that he can survive an encounter with a reality warper?**

**Leave a review or two, and I'll see you guys next time, maybe with a newly formed contract. Enjoy your holidays, everyone!**


	11. Chapter 10: Contract (Maybe?)

**A/N: [Written around December 26, 2015] Salutations from the past, readers of 2016! (Ha, now I'm a time traveler like Homura and Hideki!) Hope you guys enjoy.**** Here's Sayaka, Hideki, Katsuo, Yuuga, Yukiko, and Kyuubey, with some Madoka and Hitomi on the side. We may be on the brink of a new contract for the new year.**

**Enjoy.**

**Chapter 10: Contract (Maybe?)**

* * *

_Monday, March 9th..._

_"I am here to offer you a contract." _Kyuubey moves closer, flicking its tail randomly as it approaches. _"In exchange for a wish, I can turn you into a magical girl."_

Well, none of this is new to her. The alien had already glossed over the system once, back on Wednesday when Kyousuke had to rescue her and Madoka from a witch.

She knows that basically, becoming a magical girl means making a wish and dedicating your life to fending off witches in exchange. She also can make the basic assumption that there won't be much time for any kind of extracurricular activities before work starts. Heroines under the cover of night, or something similar.

Well, apparently boys can contract too, so 'heroes' as well as 'heroines'. But the boys are only contracted by 'rebel' aliens of Kyuubey's race. I guess Kyousuke, Nakazawa, Kyou and company are just different. She can't see much in terms of 'rebellion' in them. Especially not in Kyousuke.

Anyway, when Kyuubey first confronted her and Madoka, they didn't have anything close to a wish in mind. Well, not anything with any kind of substance, at least. She had made a joke about wishing for all-you-can-eat cake or something, but that was met only with a nervous laugh from Madoka, like someone who heard a joke about God and was wondering if it was okay to laugh at it or not.

Her and Madoka were fairly content with their lives as they were; she can't say there was anything they wanted that much that they'd make a wish for it.

Now, however, was a different case.

"W—"

"Kyuubey, we would appreciate it if you didn't rush the girl," Yukiko says, staring sternly at the alien with her arms crossed over her chest.

_What?_

"Really, girls like her need to deliberate on this," Nakazawa adds, leaning on a blood-free section of wall and fiddling with his uniform's cuffs.

_Hey! What's that supposed to mean?_

Wrong.

Something's not right.

_HEY! NAKAZAWA! YUKIKO-SAN! KOBAYASHI-SAN! KATSUO-KUN! KYUUBEY? ANYONE?_

She can't speak.

She tries signalling to Nakazawa, but her body doesn't respond.

_I can't move either?_

_"Well, if you wish. Miki Sayaka, Nakazawa Hideki, Keishoutto Yukiko, Kobayashi Yuuga, Kobayashi Katsuo." _The alien flicks its tail for each name said. _"Until next time."_

The human boys don't respond at all, Nakazawa nods in acknowledgement without looking up from his cuffs, and Yukiko reaches in her jacket pocket and throws something black at the alien.

The black mass flies through the air, and as it reaches the alien, it jumps up and angles itself so that the symbol on its back is matched up with the object.

As it lands, it licks its paw and looks at her. _"I was wondering what you were going to do with that."_

"Heh. I had a feeling that I'd meet you here. I figured I'd get rid of this while I'm here."

_"Efficient, I suppose." _The alien turns around, flicking its tail again. _"Until a later date."_

And with that, the alien leaves, two breaths escape from the human boys' mouths, Nakazawa looks up again, and Sayaka is able to do things again.

And as such, the first thing she did was confront who she thinks rendered her bodily functions unresponsive.

"Hey, Nakazawa! What the hell was that?" She walks up to the boy, not caring that she's invading all personal space as she tries to stare the taller boy down.

He looks down at her sighs. "You didn't retain anything of what I just said, did you?"

"Huh?" She quirks an eyebrow. _What is he talking about?_

"I said just before Kyuubey showed up that the kidnapper might have kidnapped Kyousuke in that manner to make you more susceptible to making a contract, right?"

_Ah..._ "Something like that...yeah..."

He facepalms. "And there you were, looking like you were ready to make a contract right then and there."

"Oh...I guess I that kind of slipped my mind," she mutters sheepishly.

Again, a sigh escapes his lips. "Look, I have no problem with you making a contract. You do what you think is best for you. But like Kyousuke," he pushes himself off of the wall and stands to face her, "I don't want you do it on impulse. Think it over. Think of what it means. Think of the situation. It's likely that the kidnapper will have something waiting for you the moment you contract. You won't be able to ease into things like Kyou and Kyousuke did, there will likely be no learning curve for you. You'll be thrust right into the thick of things."

The boy is radiating a type of authority and seniority that only a veteran of this business can express, and she feels like there's no way she can build up the courage to object, because what can she tell him regarding this?

She looks to Yukiko as well, and finds she has the same knowing expression that Nakazawa has. She guesses that means that both of them can speak from experience.

"Just take some more time to think it over, now that we've come to this conclusion, okay?"

"O-okay..." Again, she looks at Yukiko, and she smiles knowingly.

"He's right, you know."

She sighs. Looks like she's going to be doing a lot more thinking about this, despite the amount that she's already done.

* * *

_That evening..._

Nakazawa Hideki is tired.

To be honest, ever since Kyou had called him the night before telling him how Kyousuke had gotten kidnapped, he had been sort of irked.

Ah, that's not right. Revise that sentence to change 'sort of' to 'extremely', and then you have a more accurate take on his emotions. In fact, he was so far into his anger that he had to strain to keep up his positive, goofy attitude today with the ever-irritating Miki Sayaka.

As such, as soon as he got home he evaded his uncle and his perverted jokes of nationwide renown and pretty much collapsed as soon as he reached his unremarkable room in their unremarkable apartment.

He crawls over to his bed and buries his face in his pillow.

Three...two...one...

"GAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Luckily, the sound is muffled, so no one comes to check on him.

He continues this until he feels like he won't eviscerate his uncle if he tries to enter his room, and then he sits up.

_Well, I suppose it's time I talk business._

He pulls out his phone and sends Kyou a text.

'_Alright, here's what we established at the crime scene:_

_1) The kidnapper is a reality warper, more or less. I already knew this from when he kidnapped Maria, but we figured this out as a whole now._

_2) The kidnapper is likely using Kyousuke as well as Kyoko as lures for Sayaka to contract, and then to kidnap her. However, I'm not going to stop her. And you won't either. This is an order. However, I will permit you to give her counsel on the matter. That is all.'_

And...send.

He's sure he'll have questions or objections, but those will wait for later.

He looks at the power button on his phone and presses it. He'll entertain Kyou's questions later.

For now, it's time to do some inquiry. It will be safe to say that the next person after Sayaka to be kidnapped will be Madoka, but after that the trail runs cold. Hitomi has no magical potential whatsoever, so anyone could be targeted after that circle is taken care of. It could be himself, Obito, Homura when she shows up, Kyou, the Reshigi twins _if_ they ever show up, even Keishoutto Yukiko. He can't keep watch on every single one of them. Clones are not something he can really make easily. Or at all, for that matter.

At any rate, Miki Sayaka is going to contract. Because she undoubtedly wants to make a contract to find Kyousuke and take down the kidnapper, and any attempts at stopping her will be rendered futile by her stubbornness. And that's okay.

He smiles. This is a set-up. He knows it. But he's letting her go. Because at the very least, from the various timelines he has experienced, he knows that even if she may not succeed, she will give her allies an advantage by doing what she does best: be a hard-headed idiot.

* * *

_At the same time..._

Keishoutto Kyousuke is tired. And frustrated.

He's just trying to sleep, but the sounds of construction are going on right beside his window, despite it being half past ten in the evening. They even brought out giant lights, and half of them are shining straight into his room, making the room brighter than it would be normally during the daytime.

_Why...just...why...?_

The construction in question is happening in the plot of land that belonged to the Maeyamada family before the newlyweds were bought out of their homes the week before. The day after they left, the construction workers came in with demolition equipment and tore the place down, and then conducted possibly the quickest and efficient clean-up he'd ever seen in only a few hours.

And then the construction started.

It's been five days since they actually started building the house back up, and from what he could tell they started off underground and worked their way back up, however the problem that he has with that is that on the outside, _the house looks exactly the same as it did before they tore it down._ What the hell did they even do in there?

Anyway, what he's trying to say is that he's barely slept for seven days straight. His grades have suffered in response. To the point that Saotome-sensei brought him to the faculty office after school last Friday to ask if there was something going on at home that wasn't allowing him to sleep, to which he responded with "Constant banging and drilling. All night, every night for the last few days." Looking back on it, he can understand why the teacher suddenly got flustered and said he could leave, but at the time he was confused beyond words, so he left without clearing anything up.

_Dammit, just who is moving in next door that all this destruction needs to be done now?_

He puts his pillow over his head and squeezes his eyes shut. This is going to be another long night.

* * *

_Tuesday, March 10th..._

She almost calls out to let her parents know she's leaving, but she forgets that both of them are still sleeping soundly in bed. Opting not to disturb her creators, she shuts the door as softly as she can as she goes to the elevator and heads on her way to school...

Wait, no. There's something she forgot to add.

There's an alien riding on her shoulder.

When she woke up, she saw the alien curled up beside her on her bed, which startled her to no end as she first thought her parents had left her a present or something as they got home late, but she found out that wasn't the case as the alien brushed its tail against her nose.

Anyway, she takes note of who she's meeting on the way there. She always meets up with Hitomi before Madoka since they live closer, but she knows only one of them is going to be there, and that is her green-haired ojou-sama of a friend. The cotton-candy themed girl has morning duty this morning, so unless the girl forgot about it (which she highly doubts), then she would have left before them.

She kind of wishes Hitomi had morning duty rather than her, no offense, so that she wouldn't have to deal with the alien on her own. But it is what it is, she supposes.

Speaking of her, up ahead where they usually meet is Hitomi, looking a bit worse for wear. She has bags under her eyes and looks like she was crying until just recently.

_"Your friend looks a bit distressed, Miki Sayaka."_

She looks at the alien on her shoulder through the corner of her eyes. _"Thanks for stating the obvious, Kyuubey."_

The alien doesn't respond as she approaches her friend. But before she can ask her what the problem is, the girl practically throws herself on her, knocking the alien from her shoulder and almost knocking the blueberry off her feet.

A muffled cry comes from Hitomi's mouth as she buries her face in her modest breasts.

"Sayakaaaaaaaa..."

"Y-yeah...?" She's genuinely concerned. Maybe even scared. It's not like her to lose her cool like this. At all.

The girl picks herself up, looking at her with fresh tears streaming down her face. She sniffles and says, "K-Kamjou-kun's been kidnapped! I saw it on the news this morning!"

In...out...

_Ah..._

With her bringing the incident to police view, that meant that the police would be informing reporters so the newscasters can broadcast this information that is ubiquitous in newscasts worldwide.

"I-I heard..."

_I saw..._

"Looks like it hit you just as hard as it hit me..." Sayaka lies. She knows that Hitomi, despite her appearance right now, isn't as bothered as she was not only because she didn't see it, but because the news twisted the facts a little to appease the people.

_"The public doesn't need another youth's death on their conscience,"_ said the elder Kobayashi the day before, after Kyuubey took his leave. _"So we'll just have the news put extra emphasis on the fact that he was kidnapped."_

_"Isn't that already assumed though?" _Sayaka isn't as versed in these things as the adults are.

_"No, we've actually had to manipulate the facts since the start," t_he younger Kobayashi answered. _"No human can lose that much blood that each victim lost barring Akatsuki Maria and live. Not unless the kidnapper has access to the medical equipment to remedy such blood loss, which would require lots and lots of blood and the necessary transfusion equipment."_

And so, the adjusted media story was something that simply emphasized the fact that the boy was _kidnapped_, with no unnecessary information about the condition of the crime scene or the sheer amount of blood lost.

_You don't even know the half of it, Hitomi._

Sayaka shudders as the alien suddenly scampers up her body and onto her shoulder again. _"Hey, alien! At least warn me first!"_

_"I did. You ignored me."_

_"What? Stop lying; no you didn't."_

_"Allow me to tell you something, Miki Sayaka," _the alien says, _"My race is incapable of lying. You really did ignore me. Probably while you were remembering the conversation with Kobayashi Katsuo and Yuuga from yesterday."_

_"Ah...Wait, wait, wait, why were you in my head?"_

_"Well," _the alien wiggles its tail against her ear, making her shudder again, _"that's because my only form of communication lies within the mind."_

_"So you have to be inside it all of the time?"_

_"I prefer to be."_

Sayaka sighs. "Whatever."

Hitomi looks up in surprise. "H-huh?"

"Oh, sorry," she doesn't know what Hitomi thinks she responded to, but she gets the feeling it was something serious by the pure surprise on her face. "I was thinking out loud. What did you say?"

Hitomi seems appeased, if only a bit. "I said, what if Kyousuke's d-d-de—"

She interrupts herself as she shakes her head visibly. Should she even be going to school if she's this much of a mess?

"Calm down, Hitomi," Sayaka says as she walks to match Hitomi's pace. "Thinking like that will get us nowhere."

Hitomi nods, but this isn't enough for the bluenette. "All we can do is believe that he'll come back to us. And if that's not enough, I'll find him and drag him back here myself!"

At this, a small smile forms on the taller girls lips. "You're right, Sayaka-san. We can rest assured that he'll come back to us."

The green-haired girl is more energetic now, and has a kind of pep in her step now that all's been said. She didn't think the taller girl would be so idealistic, but if she's assured, then that's all that matters.

The girl picks up her pace with her improving mood. Or maybe Sayaka just slows down. She doesn't know which, but she has something ask the alien about.

_"Hey, Kyuubey," _she starts as she pats the alien on her shoulder, _"What's it like being a magical girl?"_

It responds promptly. _"I can't say what it's like, since I only make the contracts, but I can give you another brief overview, if you so desire."_

Sayaka nods, and the Incubator begins.

_"Magical girls are beings born from blessings, contracted by my kind through the exchange of granting a wish for having them fight witches, which are beings that are born from despair."_

Nothing that he hadn't gone over before, the first time they talked to the alien. And since it's just a shortened version of that time's introduction, there's no questions to be asked. Probably. If there is any, she'll dig those up later.

For now, time to deal with what's no doubt going to be a dreadful day at school.

Sayaka and Hitomi advance up the stairs and feel a deep sense of dread blanketing the whole school. And it's getting stronger as they reach the second floor.

The two exchange glances as they reach the top, looking into the hallway that seems to somehow be putting a damper on the natural lighting from its window-walls and advancing warily.

_What is it that has everyone in such a bad mood...oh, wait..._

The two reach the turn before they reach their room and freeze, for what they saw was not something they were expecting to see this morning.

Kyou is curled up on the floor beside the door, literally radiating some type of darkness as he trembles there on the floor. It looks like he's holding his head, too.

The two girls stoop down beside him. "H-hey, Kyou-kun..."

"Erosuke, what's wrong?" Hitomi and Sayaka both have a smidgen of concern, one because they've never seen him in such a pathetic state, and two (which only applies to Sayaka) she knows that he's contracted as well to ensure the magical girls' survival.

He looks up at them and "_Oh my god_, you look terrible!" escapes Sayaka's mouth against her wishes. "What happened?"

He has rings around his eyes like he hasn't slept in days, and frankly he looks like he's been drained of every ounce of energy. "Banging and drilling...every night...haven't slept for days...and...negativity...everywhere..." He groans. "...my head..."

After hearing this slightly suggestive string of words, the only ones not being taken with a double meaning being 'negativity' and what came after that, they opt to let the boy lay there. It looks like he'll turn to dust if they touch him, and they don't want to get very close to that...blackness radiating off of him. Sayaka guesses it's part of his power, but if that's the case that must mean it reacts whenever he's distressed. Which is not safe at all.

The girls enter the room and hear none of the usual chaos that happens before classes start. No rough-housing as usual, no heated arguments or conversations about the latest doujinshi or whatever, just hushed whispers and anxious or solemn faces.

_I guess they heard about it, too..._

Hitomi heads to her seat first while Sayaka just looks around in awe at the funeral-like mood in the classroom. Well, she can't really blame them. After almost three weeks without incident, they got thrust back into this mess, and to make matters worse Kyousuke was the third person from her class and fifth from this school to be kidnapped. Frankly, she's surprised they hadn't stopped them from coming to school.

She takes a step forward to her seat where Madoka and Hitomi are talking in the same hushed tone that everyone else is, and a translucent veil comes down over her eyes.

Without missing a beat, she elbows her attacker in the ribs and steps out from under the veil, turning around to see who she knows is Nakazawa clutching the attacked area.

"Really, Nakazawa? This early?"

"G-good morning to you too, Miki-san..." His voice is strained. He has a wide white ribbon in his hand; what he used to temporarily blind Sayaka, but still has his goofy grin on his face despite the pain he looks to be in. "Damn, your elbow is sharp..."

"Exactly," she says, not feeling in the mood for his antics. "So don't sneak up behind me."

He pulls himself up from bending over his desk and tucks the ribbon in his bag, then looks around the classroom. "I didn't think Kyousuke's absence would have this much of an effect on the class. Even Fuyudo-kun's normal gloomy self looks to be feeling noticeably worse."

"Yeah, well I'm sure finding out someone you interact with everyday got kidnapped will do things to you." She notices that that came out bitterly. Very much so. But she doesn't want to be toyed with this morning, so she guesses this works in her favor. "Shouldn't you be tending to Kyou instead of messing with me?"

"I took care of him." His grin widens. "I called Izuko-chan down for him."

She shudders. She wouldn't dare call their nurse 'Izuko-chan'; she may be small, but she is one vicious lady. "You mean Kaibashi-sensei? You know she'll kill you if she hears you call her that."

His eye twitches. "Ah...looks like she let me off easy..."

"Huh?"

He lifts up his arm and she cringes as she sees the needle stuck inside of it, and impaled between the skin and the needle is a note. "Ow ow ow..." He pulls it out, takes the note and puts the needle in his bag as well.

"What's it say?" Sayaka steps as close as she dares as she looks at the unfolded piece of paper.

There are but four words:

_'I will kill you."_

They shudder in unison, and Sayaka decides to get as far away from Nakazawa as possible. She's not going to be subject to Kaibashi-sensei's wrath because she associated with him, nope.

"Good luck, Nakazawa."

He sighs. "Thanks."

And with this, they both go to their seats to join the hushed conversations around the classroom.

"Hey, Sayaka-chan," Madoka greets her with a deflated smile.

"Hey, Madoka." Sayaka puts her stuff down on her desk and groans as she puts her head on her desk.

"Listen, um..." Madoka trails off as she looks for something to say; something that she's seventy-five-percent sure she's not going to like.

"Don't worry about it, Madoka. Everything's going to be alright," she spits these words out of her mouth with minimal conviction as she continues to press her forehead on the desk.

_Yeah...it'll all be alright...I'm sure of it._

* * *

Thank god for lunch bells.

She kinda sorta hates her science class. Lecture, lecture, lecture, to infinity and beyond. The teacher seriously can't expect anyone to be able to focus when his teaching methods are so boring. There's nothing that holds interest, he won't relate anything to the real world like tell us what everyday uses ammonium sulfate has in everyday life, or how bleach and ammonia react when they come in contact with another; it's hopeless.

But, thankfully today, Kyou attended that class and managed to keep the teacher's focus on him with his constant radiation of negativity. She questions whether or not being present had a purpose though, since he trembled on his desk the whole time and stomped his feet on occasion. Really, the teacher couldn't take his eyes off of the boy.

_Really, what powers does he have for _that_ to happen to him?_

Sayaka pulls out her lunch and looks back to Madoka in the row beside her, then to Hitomi behind her. Needless to say, they're both getting their lunches out as well.

"So," Sayaka says, drawing both of their attention, "should we eat in here or on the roof today?"

Hitomi lowers her head in apology as she stands up. "Sorry; Saotome-sensei told me to come see her during lunch period, so I can't eat with you two today."

Madoka shakes her head and Sayaka waves her off. "It's fine, Hitomi-chan."

"Don't worry about it, Hitomi. Next time then," Sayaka says as Hitomi walks out of the room.

"Well, there goes Hitomi." She turns back to the pinkette. "So, where do you want to eat, Madoka?"

She tilts her head to the side as she thinks. "Well, it is kinda chilly today; we might catch a cold if we eat on the roof today...so here, I guess?"

Sayaka shrugs. "Alright."

She begins to unwrap her leftover-comprised lunch, but is interrupted by something hitting her in the head and falling to the ground.

"A...paper airplane."

Not a question, but a statement of bemused wonder.

She looks up in the direction of who she thinks threw it and sees Nakazawa waving to her with the same annoying grin on his face from earlier.

She gets up and mutters, "Be right back" to Madoka and walks up to the boy's desk, radiating pure ire.

She folds the paper hot-dog style and slams it down over his head. "What do you want, Nakazawa?"

He rubs the top of his head as he looks up at her. "Miki-chan, why do you have to be so cold?"

"Because you irritate me 95.7% of the time I see you."

"Tch." He sits up straight and toes the button on the seat to his right, a seat that hasn't had an owner all year, and it springs up into a desk. "Take a seat. I'll try to keep things simple."

"Huh? What are you talking about..." She sees the serious look on his face and takes her hostility down a notch. Looks like this boy's about to 'talk business'. "Got it. This is about Kyousuke, right," Sayaka asks as she sits down.

"I guess it relates. But this is mostly about you," he explains as he points at her.

"Me...? Is it about me contracting?"

He looks genuinely surprised. "Wow, you guessed it!"

"I did?"

"Mhmm...well, I don't want to hold you up for too long, so I'll get straight to it: you're thinking about making a contract, yeah?"

She nods slowly. "Yeah...is that a problem?"

"No, no. I'm not going to stop you from doing what you want and what you think is right; I said so last night. However, I want you to be aware that this is going to be a trap. I'm 99.9% sure that it is. Are you prepared for that?"

Again, she nods. But this time it was an assured nod. The fact that she is going to contract is pretty much a guarantee by this point, but when kind of hanging in the air. Whenever the alien comes back to her, she guesses. He left before class started, probably to scout out some more magical girls or something. Or do whatever it is a Kyuubey does in his spare time.

"Well, if you say so. I'll have you know, though, that depending on what you decide to make a wish on, you could be the one that leads us to the kidnapper. In fact, as of now, you may be our only chance."

Once more she nods, this time coupled with a gulp, the girl digesting what he's telling her. "Anything else?"

"Nope," he says, shaking his head. "That's all. I told you I didn't want to keep you long, right?"

She looks at the clock. _Only two minutes, huh..._ "Hmm...I guess so." She stands up, leaving the seat engaged and starts to walk back to her seat. "Thanks, Nakazawa. I guess."

He sighs and gets up out of his own seat, turning towards the door. "No problem. Good luck, Miki Sayaka." He then walks out with a destination unknown.

_'Good luck,' huh?_

She takes her seat again, and Madoka looks to her curiously. "Hey, Sayaka-chan...is there something going on between you and Nakazawa-kun?"

She shakes her head. "Not really. It's nothing like what you're thinking, at least."

Madoka returns her focus to her food and peeks at Sayaka through the corner of her eye. "Well, if you say so..."

Sayaka returns the gesture, peeking at the girl and resuming eating her lunch. _Jeez, now she's making me feel bad..._ "Fine, fine, Madoka. I'll tell you."

The pinkette looks up fully, looking with her normal sheepish curiosity at the girl. "You know that Kobayashi Katsuo boy, the Computer Club boy that never attends classes?"

She nods. "Yeah..."

"Well, he's the son of the police chief. And Nakazawa and Kyou are involved with them as well, helping with the kidnapping investigations."

A look of surprise comes over Madoka's face, and she continues. "I phoned Kyou the day of the kidnapping, because I...was there...and told him everything, and he was the one that organized the meeting that I disappeared to yesterday morning."

Sayaka takes a deep breath. "I found out that Nakazawa and Kyou are magical boys just like Kyousuke, and Nakazawa was just giving me advice on contracts and stuff."

And now her eyes almost bulge out of their sockets. "S-Sayaka-chan...you're going to contract?"

The bluenette laughs nervously and rubs the back of her head. "Well, yeah...I found my reason to contract." She sees the slightly distressed look on the smaller girl's face at this news. "B-but don't let the fact that I've decided presure you to contract, okay? Take your time!"

"O-okay..." Madoka is appeased, and she finishes off her lunch.

_Alright, now that I've sated Madoka's curiosity, should I look over my—_

A shrill ringing drowns out her thoughts.

—_Nevermind._

She packs up her lunch and pulls out her things for English class...

"Oh crap."

She slams her head down on her desk in despair.

_I left my homework at home...I'm stupid...so stupid..._

* * *

_That evening..._

She's now sitting at her desk at home, doing homework while she waits for her parents to come home with their dinner.

Thankfully, the English teacher is a fairly nice guy, so he let her off easy, but the same can't be said about her other teachers, especially since she only really keeps up with homework in his class. She had the benefit of the doubt in this class, but with her other classes it's commonplace, but not to the point that the teachers have lost hope on her, if the punishments they give her are any proof.

Anyway, let's establish that math is the bane of her existence. Cosecant, secant, tangent, sine, cosine, cotangent? How the hell is she supposed to understand which goes with which if Akutagawa-sensei sends her out of class every little screw up she has? She didn't have her homework today, sure, but she had it the last three days! She can't let it slide this time, when she was actually getting into it?

She sighs and scratches her head in frustration. "Maybe Madoka can help me out with this..."

She pulls out her phone and scrolls through her contacts.

_"Hello, Miki Sayaka."_

'_Thump'_

She looks up at the ceiling and rubs her head. _"Would it kill you to make some noise when you arrive, Kyuubey?"_

_"You should stop being so easily startled, instead," _the Incubator says from her bed, and the girl picks herself and the chair up, then goes to her bed.

_"Like I could do that." _She picks up the alien and lays down on the bed, holding it in the air above her. _"So? I take it you heard my conversation with Nakazawa and Madoka at school or something, right? That's why you're here, right?"_

Those magenta eyes stare down at her from arm's length, the weird ear-appendage things tickling her arms. "Very_ perceptive, Miki Sayaka." _The alien wriggles out of her hands and lands beside her on the bed, curling up and looking at her over its tail. _"So, you have a wish ready for me?"_

She takes a deep breath, and sits in the _seiza _position on her bed. "Yes, I do."

The alien pads in front of her, sitting up on its haunches. _"What is your wish then, Miki Sayaka?"_

She swallows and takes a deep breath. _It's time...time for me to find Kyousuke and the others...Nakazawa said I could be the only chance to find them, so here goes nothing..._

"I wish...for the power to find Kyousuke and the others."

_"Understood."_

The alien then reaches its ear-appendages up towards her chest, and then...well...things get hard to put in words.

There's a blue light now filling the mostly-dark room, and the girl feels strength leaving her body...but she feels like she's getting stronger at the same time.

The ears drift away from her body and upwards as light floats up and she feels herself start to fall backward, her balance thrown off completely.

_"Here it is, Miki Sayaka. Your soul gem."_

Sayaka's head hits the bed and she lays there, marveling at the azure gem suspended in front of her.

_"Take it, and move forward as a magical girl."_

She reaches toward the gem, hands closing around it as she holds it close to her chest, fingering the intricate designs on it.

_Now...now, I can finally save Kyousuke and the others..._

Her name is Miki Sayaka, and she is a magical girl. Finally.

She clenches her hands around the gem and smiles slightly.

_Be ready, Kyousuke, Kyoko. I'm coming to get you._

* * *

**A/N: And that's that. The first chapter of 2016. Sayaka's a magical girl, Hideki seems to be scheming again, Madoka found out that Kyou and Hideki were contracted as well, Kyou might be getting sleep soon, whenever whoever it is moving next door moves in, etc.**

**Anyway, big news, everyone! Some of you already know this, but Madoka Magica is getting a new project! Check the puella magi wiki for more (click on the link on the front page, it will take you to the announcement, or just look up 'Madoka Magica concept movie' in Google or something).**

**Basically, a concept movie was released in Shaft's ****"~Commemorating 40 Years of Shaft~ Madogatari" Event ****containing images that are to be used in a new Madoka project will be coming out, and it is going to act as a trailer for this project when it airs. I don't know if it's going to be an entire season or a movie, but either way I'm ready to see _everyone_ get a happy ending this time. (But then again, this _is_ Gen Urobuchi we're talking about, so...)**

**AND it's been said by the director Mitsutoshi Kubota that Nagisa (meh) and Hitomi are going to be getting roles in this next work. Yes, you read that right. Maybe Hitomi will finally get her chance to become a magical girl.**

**Needless to say, the hype is so real I might explode. Hopefully it comes out sometime this year...but that's all I have to say on the matter. Do research on your own if you want to know more.**

**Leave a review, if you want, and I'll see you guys next time. Dragonmaster, out.**


	12. Chapter 11: Learning Curve (Conflict)

**A/N: And so, I accidentally wrote the longest chapter I've ever written this time around, at around 12.6k words. Though that doesn't justify the near 4-month wait, it's here now. I really need to maintain a schedule when it comes to updating my fics. It's getting ridiculous.**

**Anyway, enjoy.**

**Chapter 11: Learning Curve (Conflict)**

* * *

_Tuesday, March 10th..._

Hideki got something when his contract was formed. Something useful as a counter of the living or dead.

He pulls one of his bracelets off of his wrist and wills it into a disc shape about the size of a large platter, and releases it to let it levitate in front of him in his room.

"Come, Mitakihara counter."

Twenty-one gems seem to push through the surface of the "metal" ring, one in the center, eight around the center gem, and twelve around the outside.

These gems, color coded by person, have four states. First is a dull sheen of the color, a state that signifies normal humans. Second is a glowing state, which signifies a magical individual. Third is cracked, which signifies the person in question is gravely injured, not necessarily in a physical way. And finally, there is an empty slot, which signifies a deceased individual.

There is one empty slot at the moment, but that one fluctuates between a shining cracked gem and empty slot often. They are also a magical individual. No one can really help them out; they are victim of their own stupidity.

There are two that have been cracked for a while now, without the one toying with death above. They're also magical individuals, and there's no method to help those individuals, either.

There are eight dull gems for the humans, and there are thirteen total magical individuals, the three special cases listed above and ten pristine ones.

A...well, _magical _sound fills the air and one of the human gems turns into a perfect glowing azure blue one.

"Ah, so Miki Sayaka's contracted finally, huh?"

Let us change the count to fourteen magical individuals and seven humans.

"Well, I suppose things are going to be getting pretty exciting soon," Hideki says, returning the disc to its bracelet form and putting it back on, then flopping onto his bed. "I'm going to have to start going to bed at decent hours now if I want to keep up with them."

* * *

_Wednesday, March 11th..._

Miki Sayaka is feeling good, to put it simply.

Unnaturally good.

Supernaturally good.

_Magically_ good.

With the contract the night before her body feels like it's overflowing with energy. Like there was a dam of potential inside her that burst and is now flowing through her limbs and threatening to break through her skin to wreak havoc on her surroundings.

She also feels like her mood, which has been outwardly sour since Kyousuke's kidnapping in comparison to the mental bitterness caused by Kyoko's incident, has improved greatly. She's not sure if it's courtesy of the rampaging energy gained from losing the feeling of powerlessness as of late, but she's been affected in a very positive way, and she's happy for that.

She's been changed in a way ineffable to scientific means, and feels ready to take on the world with her newfound strength. Of course, she'll have to figure out a bit about her powers before all of that, but that's a story for later in the day, when she gets home. Her parents are going to be working extra today at their jobs, so they won't be home until late. Say, between eleven PM and midnight. That'll be plenty of time to figure out what she can do, she supposes.

In other, more current news, Sayaka just walked out of the door of her apartment complex a few minutes ago, and had a few minutes until she met with Hitomi. Also, today was a normal day, meaning Madoka will be meeting with them as well, fortunately. She knows that absolutely no one enjoys morning duty, Madoka included, despite how much the pinkette enjoys cleaning. Cleaning and preparing things during normal hours is one thing, but having to get up early to do it? That's asking too much.

She holds her left hand out in front of her, inspecting the new additions to her middle finger: a silvery ring and a blue crescent-shaped mark on her finger. The ring is like she said, a glowing silver ring covered in some weird symbols; six in total. Runes, she guesses. No clue which civilization used it, or if it's the language of Kyuubey's race, but she knows that they mean absolutely nothing to her at the moment. She can worry about that later, maybe in a time of less turmoil, emotional and otherwise.

As for the azure crescent on her fingernail: she likes it. Like, a lot. She was never one for painting her nails anything other than clear, but this works out fine, since it looks damn cool. It fits her perfectly, in her opinion.

As she finishes her marveling at her new bling, she sees familiar heads of pink and green in the distance.

_So I'm the late one today, huh?_

Sayaka takes off towards the group, not wanting to keep them waiting any longer. "Hey, Madoka, Hitomi!"

Her two childhood friends wave back. "Hi, Sayaka-chan!"

"Good morning, Sayaka-san!"

Sayaka slows down so she doesn't barrel over the two fragile and undoubtedly human girls in front of her. Well, granted, if you somehow managed to get Hitomi angry enough, she seems to unlock some monster within her and exhibit superhuman strength, especially in the form of punches, but that's not the point.

She switches her bag to her right hand, raising her left to brush some strands of hair out of her face. She notices Hitomi's eyes widen.

"Oh, that's a nice ring, Sayaka-san," Hitomi says cheerily, stepping closer to examine the accessory. She holds her hand out so she can see better, and Madoka gets involved in the spectation as well.

Madoka looks at it curiously. "So strange..." She turns to look at the bluenette. "Where did you get it?"

She remembers hearing Kyuubey say something about being able to use telepathy once she contracts to communicate. Why not try it out here with Madoka?

She doesn't know exactly how to do it, but she figures just saying what she wants to say towards the girl in her mind should be enough...right? Well, maybe if she puts more effort into actually directing the words to her, it'll work. Maybe.

_Here goes nothing_...

Out loud, she says, "My parents gave it to me." That appeases Hitomi.

_"I got it from a contract, Madoka."_

Madoka's eyes almost bug out of their sockets. "W-wha—" She cuts herself short as she sees Sayaka smiling at her reaction. _"Sayaka-chan? Is that you?"_

_"Mhmm!" _Is her mental response. Out loud, there's something completely different being said. "Well, that's enough staring at this. It's not that remarkable," Sayaka comments, putting her hand down and breaking Hitomi's contact with it, who seemed curiously entranced by the accessory, like she was trying to figure out what it was made of. Hitomi always had a bit of a thing for jewelry. "Let's get going, shall we?"

Sayaka walks forward, but lets Hitomi take the lead as she falls back beside Madoka.

_"How are you doing that, Sayaka-chan? Is Kyuubey here?" _Madoka looks at her with her same timid curiosity.

Sayaka shakes her head. _"Nope. I'm actually a magical girl now," _she says with a stupid grin on her face.

Madoka looks shocked, which confuses her. Didn't she tell her yesterday that she was going to contract?

She sends this thought to her, and Madoka responds with, _"Well, I knew that, but I didn't think you would do right after you told me..."_

She waves it off._ "Oh. I guess that makes sense. But don't sweat the small stuff, okay? Just know that I'm going to go and get the others back, okay?"_

Madoka, after some silence, smiles weakly and says, _"Okay, Sayaka-chan._

* * *

The three girls make idle chatter as they reach the school, but their long-overdue conversation about Madoka's ribbons was cut short as they see a boy at the school entrance, leaning against the glass.

_This fool again...hopefully he won't make me have to kick him in his family jewels. I may be really euphoric at the moment, but no matter my mood I can only deal with him but so much..._

"Alright, I'll see you guys in the classroom," Sayaka says, preparing to break off from their tricolor trio.

Hitomi looks at her. "Have to take care of more business with Nakazawa, huh?"

"Yep," she responds. "I won't be too long, though."

The three say their extremely temporary farewells and head to separate destinations: the duo to the classroom, the single beside the entrance.

"Good morning, Nakazawa-kun." Maybe if she makes the first move, he will try to be casual and not an asshat.

"Mornin', Sayaka-chan!" He has his signature asshole grin on his face, making her want to hit him, but she contains herself, instead sighing.

"Didn't I tell you not to address me so familiarly? Do it again and I'll hit you."

He sighs and holds up his hands in surrender. "Yes, _Miki-san_." He fixes his blazer and pushes off of the wall. "So, how does it feel," he asks, motioning his head towards her left hand.

"Very...empowered. Like I could take on the world," she answers, earning a raised eyebrow from Nakazawa.

"Not fair..." He puffs his cheeks out, if only for a second, disappearing just as quickly as it came. "Well, please don't try. We can't have you dying on the first day."

She sighs in exasperation. "You really think I would attempt that? I was just using the saying as a measuring stick." He responds by shrugging, then proceeds on his way into the school.

She follows behind him. "And what did you mean, 'not fair'?"

He lets loose one of his own sighs. "Well, I guess I was a special case. When I contracted, I felt like absolute shit. But maybe that was courtesy of my mental state."

_Ah_. "How long ago did you contract?"

He pauses mid step, almost making her run into him and knock him onto the steps. "About...erm...four years ago? Or something like that?"

She gasps in astonishment. "Four years ago? You were like, ten!"

He claps and continues up the stairs. "Oh? You got it right. I thought math was your worst subject."

She resists the urge to test out her newfound strength on his back. "Ass."

"Calling names already, Miki-san? Do you have any clue how early it is?"

They finally depart the stairs on the second floor. "It's never too early to insult you, Nakazawa."

He starts waving his bag in his hand. "So cold, Miki-san."

She'd rather not give him reason to continue talking, so she ends their conversation as they reach the classroom. However, as they get to the door, Hideki steps to the side of it instead of entering. "Eh?"

"One more thing before I leave you to your own devices; remember the senior magical boy I sent Kyou to report to on Monday?"

She nods. "Yeah. What about him?"

"Well, since I've no doubt you plan on trying your powers out after school, I decided to send said subordinate to help you out. You know, make sure you don't die, since I have a prior engagement and I can't hold your hand today."

_Okay..._"Thanks, I guess." _I wonder what this 'senior magical boy' is like..._

"Well, that's all. I'll leave you in peace the rest of the day; no doubt you're tired of me interrupting your routine these last two days."

_Ain't that the truth. _"Alright. Well, see you later then, Nakazawa." _I've no plans of talking to him the rest of the day._

"See ya." He motions to her to go first, and she accepts, the boy following behind her.

As she takes her seat, she notices Madoka and Hitomi whispering amongst themselves. "What are you two whispering about, hmm?"

The two wave her over to them. Which desk they want her to hover over, she's not sure, so she just settles in between them and hunches over. "What is it?"

"Well," Madoka starts.

"We just saw Kyou-kun walking around with two people with purple hair and orange eyes," Hitomi finishes.

"Calm down," Sayaka says, waving it off. "It was probably just his mom and—wait, _orange _eyes?" _I don't even know anyone with orange eyes..._

"Yeah," the pinkette says as she nods. "Do you have any clue who they are, Sayaka-chan?"

_How would I know_, Sayaka wonders, mentally facepalming. "Nope. Not at all. We're better off asking Kyou instead of just throwing around guesses."

"Fair enough," Hitomi responds, shifting her position in her seat. "Well, wha—"

The bell makes its existence known, cutting short whatever it is that Hitomi was going to say as Saotome-sensei makes her way into the classroom. However, still no Kyou.

"Alright, class, take your seats..."

She reaches out telepathically to Nakazawa. _"Oi, have you seen Kyou?"_

_"Probably catching up with people or something. You won't see him in class for a while; the two he's with are a...troublesome bunch, to say the least."_

She raises an eyebrow as she occupies herself with her ring, making the light glint off the surface and into her eyes. _"'Troublesome', you say? Troublesome how?"_

_"Well, take how much I irritate you and multiply it by t—"_

"Tell me, Nakazawa-kun!"

He bolts up out of his chair as Saotome-sensei calls on him suddenly, pointing her pointer-stick at him.

Sayaka snickers, hearing the boy's flustered response to the inquiry she had to repeat. _Maybe he has a weakness for Saotome-sensei._

She smiles to herself as she relishes in the fact that she's gained some ammo against the boy. She's going to be repaying the irritation he causes her in kind soon.

* * *

School bells are possibly one of her most favorite things of all time. The feeling when the bell rings, when the monotony of the class being taught is broken by a shrill ringing of the alarm and allows at least for a refreshing five-minute break to clear the students' heads and prepare for the next challenge is something welcome. However, that feeling is squared when said bell is the final bell of the day. If fact, these days you could say that youths are conditioned to feel a certain type of relief and elation when the bell tolls.

She moves to get out of her seat as most people start filing out of the room, teacher included. "Ahh, I feel better already!"

Madoka looks over at her from Hitomi's desk. "...You weren't feeling well?"

"I'm never feeling well as long as school is in session. It puts a damper on my mood," Sayaka answers, making sure to include that last part to clear up the pink-themed girl's misunderstanding; she no doubt thought Sayaka was feeling physically unwell.

"I know how you feel, Sayaka-san," Hitomi says, agreeing with her even though this is not something she aimed for. "The only fairly interesting part of the day would be the breaks and maybe Saotome-sensei's class, depending on how her relationship is going."

"Speaking of Saotome-sensei..." Madoka starts, then looks at the two of us and seeing who's left in the classroom: Miyagi Hajime, Fuyudo Yuuta, and Kanamori Rentarou were speaking together behind them, the former and latter boys taking up seats in front and beside Yuuta's desk respectively (meaning Rentarou was in Hitomi's seat, something she didn't seem too happy about), and Umiharu Shizuka and Kitsune Zuruka are talking up by Shizuka's desk near the door, with Zuruka seated in the seat to the left of the class rep. So basically, it's safe to speak out loud, since Yuuta is probably starting an argument about girl preferences and Zuruka is probably giving Shizuka some sort of relationship advice on approaching the boy she has her eyes on in 2-A.

The pinkette summons the two girls in closer, and they lean towards the shorter girl. "I heard from Mama that she and her boyfriend had a fight!" Madoka whispers excitedly.

Fluid clogs her throat and she enters into a coughing fit. "W-w-wait, Saotome-sensei and her boyfriend broke up?"

Madoka shakes her head. "No, they didn't break up; they just had a big fight."

"Though knowing Saotome-sensei's history, they won't make up in time to save their relationship," Hitomi comments, and begins walking towards the door. "Come on; let's walk and talk."

The two of them follow the taller girl's lead and decide to post-pone the conversation until they leave the building, lest they risk the teacher in question overhearing them and snapping.

"Well," Sayaka starts, "they could. There's a first time for everything." Madoka nods in agreement. Hitomi shrugs and concedes. This isn't really something they should be talking about anyway. It's none of their business.

They leave the school grounds and go about routes home. Before the rampage of the kidnapper, the three of them plus Kyousuke would go home, and the first person to break off would be Hitomi, who lives the farthest from all of them. In all honesty, it would be more convenient for her to attend Shirome Private School than Mitakihara Middle School. Actually, there is virtually no reason for her to attend their school and not the prestigious Shirome Private School, but whatever.

Madoka breaks off at an intersection with her as well, and Kyousuke and her would continue on their own since her apartment complex and his house are maybe ten minutes apart, on opposite ends of the same rather long street.

Now, it has been altered a bit to make sure no one's alone. They walk Hitomi home first, and when they do they head to Madoka's place through a pretty straightforward path they had no clue could reach Madoka's house until then, and finally it goes from there to Sayaka and Kyousuke's street.

But, now with the absence of Kyousuke, she's going to have to make part three on her own. Something that she would be terrified of yesterday, but is now not something so scary, now that she's a magical girl.

And so, the altered route is followed, the girls making small talk while Sayaka tries to keep up with the conversation _and_ muse over who this mysterious senpai magical boy character that Nakazawa mentioned is.

First stop: Hitomi's house.

"See you tomorrow, Sayaka-san, Madoka-san," says Hitomi in farewell. The pinkette and bluenette reciprocate the valediction, and continue onto stop two.

Halfway through that leg of the journey and a conversation about how much they love ice cream, Madoka says something in her normal sheepish tone. "Hey, Sayaka-chan?"

"Yeah?"

"Since you're a magical girl now..."

_Yeah...?_

"That means you're going to be going to fighting witches now, right?"

Sayaka nods. "Yep. I've attained a full 'hero of justice' title, so I have to do my job and all it entails."

Madoka's eyebrow raises, and she could practically see the _'why'd you word it like that' _on her face.

"My primary focus right now is not necessarily to fight witches, but to protect the residents of this city...or something like that, meaning fighting witches is just something that overlaps with it. My goal right now is to rescue the kidnapped and keep others from having the same done to them," Sayaka explains, swinging her bag back and forth in her hand. "So yeah."

"O-okay..." Worry again is on the girl's face, and so she has to appease her to keep her from feeling like a piece of crap when she goes off to do the deed.

"Don't worry, Madoka. I'll be fine." _Wow, that was half-assed._

But half-assed or not, it does its job. The pinkette's expression softens, if only slightly, and she doesn't bring it back up.

"Well, see you tomorrow then, Madoka," Sayaka says as they reach her house.

She nods slowly. "Y-yeah. Will you be okay on your own?"

"Mhmm. No problems here." _I should be fine to at least get home from here. _"See you."

"See you."

And so, Sayaka began on her journey home solo, in physical silence. However, her mind was one thing in particular, making sure the silence of only of the physical type.

_Ooohhh, I wonder what my magical girl uniform looks like. Maybe Seyiku's uniform from Meduka Meguca..._

As she fantasized about what she could do and her outfit, she approaches her apartment building and notices something out of place: a short boy, maybe ten years old at most, looking to be talking to air by the doors.

_Oh, a boy and his imaginary friend, huh? So cute..._

Once she gets within earshot, she hears this from him: "Don't worry, Shouko. I'll protect you from the kidnapper," and then he mimes a hug.

_Okay...imaginary girlfriend...? A little less cute now, a bit more creepy._

Finally, she's practically standing beside the boy, who's now pretending to stroke said imaginary friend's head.

She shudders. _Well, regardless of how much this boy's starting to creep me out, I can't leave him outside on his own. _"H-hey, little boy. What are you doing out here alone?" A better, more relevant question rears its head, so she says that as well. "Do you live here, too?"

The boy motions with his hands like he's ushering the friend behind him. "No, no, onee-san. I'm actually here looking for someone."

_Oh? _She's a rather social person, and if the person lives around her apartment building (or in it, for that matter) there's a high chance of her knowing them. Chances are she could be of some help. "So who are you looking for?"

He looks at a paper she didn't notice was in his hand, and he says, "A girl named Miki Sayaka."

_What._

"She's fourteen, has blue hair and matching eyes, a sort of plain body..."

_P-plain?! Who gave you this description? I oughta kick their ass!_

"Well, um...that's me."

He gives her a once over. "He was right. You are a bit plain."

"Do you want me to hit you?"

He seems to realize that that is not something you should ever say to a female, and quickly bows in apology. "A-ah, sorry, Miki-san...do you mind if I call you Saya-nee instead?"

_Wow...that actually sounds kinda nice. _"Sure," is what she says, and she gives the short boy a once-over as well. "So, can I help you with something, er...boy?"

"Oh, my name is Obito. Omincharao Obito. But you can call me Dragonfire if you want."

_Whoa whoa whoa, aren't you a bit early for chuunibyou? _[eighth-grader syndrome, look it up if you don't know] "Obito-kun it is then." She repeats her question. "Can I help you with something, Obito-kun?"

"Well, Hideki-nii told me you had just contracted and to make sure you don't die on your first day."

Her eye twitches. "Ah, did he now?"

_Wait..._

"_You're _that senior magical boy Nakazawa was talking about?"

He looks up at her with innocent curiosity. "Yeah! Why do you ask?"

_It's just..._"Y-you can't be any older than ten! How long have you been contracted?"

He puts a finger up to his chin. "Erm...about four-and-a-half months. Why?"

_Last October or November..._

"N-no reason. Well, follow me so I can put my bag up, and we can get going, I guess."

* * *

"Alright, luckily for us, we don't have to go too far to find a witch today."

"Hmm? What do you mean," Sayaka asks as the two of them leave the apartment, less baggage on her person as she put her bag in her apartment like she said.

"There's one close to here. In fact, it's near one of the buildings where Kyousuke-nii got kidnapped. So pull out your gem and we can start."

She does as she's told, holding her hand palm-up and willing her soul gem into her active form, and it glows into existence in her hand.

She sees Obito lean down slightly to his left, and then he turns to her and says, "Shouko says your gem is pretty."

_Er...he must have a lot invested in this imaginary friend, huh? _"T-thanks. So now what do I do?"

"Normally, you just walk around until your gem starts to glow, and you follow it getting stronger until you reach the witch, but we're cheating kind of, since we know the general direction." He cups his hand like he's holding a hand, and he points with his right hand in the direction of Kyousuke's crime scene. "Head that way, and watch as your gem starts to glow brighter as you get closer."

_Alright..._

Down the linear path they go, and true to his word, the gem starts to glow a bit brighter as they probably get closer to a witch. More steps, brighter light. Passing the crime scene, light still gets brighter, until she they finally reach an intersection.

"Uh...what should we do now," Sayaka asks, interrupting whatever conversation about 'Mion's prosciutto' he's having with his imaginary friend. Who the hell is 'Mion' anyway? Is he talking about like, Sonozaki Mion or something?

He looks up from the air he was talking to and says, "Hold your gem out as far as possible and move your arm towards each direction," he answers, and then says, "Hurry up, because witches don't tend to stay still."

_Sheesh. He went from unnerving/cute to bossy really quickly..._

She turns left first, and there is a change. A negative one; a dimming of the light, if only slightly. Had she not been focused intently on the gem, she wouldn't have noticed.

Then, to the right: results. Positive results.

"Hey, I got it, Obito-kun! It's this way," she says as she starts to move towards their objective.

She continues to walk, passing a couple buildings that don't quite fit any purpose she can think of and are rather run-down, and eventually the glow starts to weaken.

"Hey, Obito-kun...I think it's broken," she complains, turning around to seek an answer from the boy and...

"...Huh?"

He's a lot farther than she first thought. Instead of being the few steps behind her that she thought, he was standing outside one of the alleyways, back by the intersection. She assumes that it's the witch's abode he's looking at for how focused he is, plus his gem is active in his hand, but she can't even begin to fathom why he wouldn't tell her to slow up.

Making her way back to him, she says "Why are you being all silent? I thought you were supposed to be teaching me, not going off on your own!"

"Well," he starts matter-of-factly, stepping to the side to allow her entrance to the alleyway, "Hideki-nii told me 'not to guide you, but to nudge you in the right direction' or something like that."

"So do the bare-minimum in keeping me alive...pleasant, but I suppose that's one of the better ways to learn, huh?"

Obito nods. "Anyway, the witch is in here. Walk forward a bit and there will be a constant radiance in your gem. Take a step or two after that and you'll enter the witch's labyrinth."

Sayaka gulps and nods as well, taking the instruction until the gem commences its constant radiance. _Here we go..._

Step one...

Step two...

Step three...

Breakthrough.

She feels her inner miner coming out at the sight of the formations around her and Obito.

Turning to the boy, she asks "H-how much do you think these crystals are worth?", for around them are formation upon formation of semi-transparent crystals either turquoise, royal blue, or magenta in color.

However, instead of answering, he transforms into his magical boy uniform: a dark-blue skintight one-piece that has gold and white stripes on it and a dark visor with two sickles fastened at his waist, and two handguns in holsters at his sides as well.

"Huh?"

He takes a sickle, uses it to break off a chunk of crystal about the size of a head, and throws it to her. She catches it with ease. "Take a look at it."

She scrutinizes the slightly luminescent turquoise crystal and sees a faint outline of something...

Sayaka pales. "N-nevermind." _Oh god..._

"Yeah." He breaks off another chunk and inspects it. "This witch probably turns humans that wander in here into these crystals you're seeing."

She feels something closing around her fingers. _W-what...?_

She tries to pull away her hand and finds she can't move it at all. "What in the..."

No...

Obito is wrong.

This witch doesn't turn the humans into crystals...

_The crystals absorb humans into them._

"O-Obito-kun, drop the crystal!"

The dark-haired boy turns toward her and drops the crystal, and when he sees what's happening to her, he disappears.

"H-huh?"

There's a dull pain in her hands, and there's shards of the crystals scattered around her feet.

"Um...thanks?" She looks back up to see Obito dusting off his sleeves and..._hands _by his own feet. "Wait, what the hell? Whose fingers are those?"

He points to her and steps over them, advancing forward through the field and says "I couldn't get the crystal off, so I just cut off your hands and healed you so that you grew new ones. I used my speed to make it so your body couldn't realize the pain, but sorry for doing that without warning, Saya-nee."

She doesn't know what to say to that, so she continues forward with him.

_Ah...I should probably transform, huh?_

Yes, she should. However, one thing stands in the way of her and that goal.

"Hey, Obito-kun? How do I transform?"

He shrugs. "I don't know, Saya-nee. I always just kind of...think that it's time for action, or something like that."

"Ah...Well, it's better than trying to find out on my own, I guess," Sayaka says to herself, and decides to give it a shot. "Here we go..."

She's pretty sure it's more complicated than that, but she tells herself '_it's time for action'_ repeatedly and wills something to come out, and she feels a full-body change. Like, a 'change in temperature' change.

After a blue flash, she looks down at herself and then to Obito. "Obito-kun, do you have a phone?"

He nods. "Mhmm! Do you need it for something?"

"I need you to take a picture of me, please."

He materializes a phone from out of nowhere, and takes the picture like she asked. "Now what?"

She points to it. "Can I see it?"

His eyes widen in realization. "Oh, you want to see what you look like!"

_Well, duh._ "Yeah, so could you hand me that for a sec?" She can tell things like the fact that she's wearing blue gloves, has a badass sword that she recognizes to be a cutlass in hand, is wearing blue ankle boots and thigh-high white stockings, white gloves and dark blue arm sleeves, and she could feel something hanging behind her; probably a cape or cloak or something similar, and she can only see in one eye, which is a bit troubling, but it only happened after she transformed, so it must be there for a reason. She wants to see the full picture.

He hands her the phone and she looks at it with an approving eye. Among the things she didn't describe are the dark blue belts with gold buckles that are holding her stockings up, the bands above her arm sleeves of the same color, the white color of the knee-length cape and gold-laced collar, and the gold-trimmed shirt without sleeves and the dark blue breastplate over it, the 'c'-shaped gem on her belly-button where the shirt does not cover, and the diagonal form of her skirt, which gets longer as it goes from almost miniskirt length on her right to normal length on her length. The thing obstructing her vision is an _eyepatch,_ of all things, and it's blue in color.

_Heh. Looks like I'm going to be kicking ass and look damn good doing it._

She thinks she looks kind of like a swordswoman, minus the eyepatch, since the eyepatch reminds her more of a pirate than a swordswoman or knight, but whatever.

She deletes the photo and gives the phone back to Obito. "Thanks."

"No prob—wait, you deleted it?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I was planning on showing Hideki-nii and Kyou-nii how awesome you looked..." he says with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"Oh...well in that case, you can take another picture after we're done. Maybe."

The dark blue-haired boy's eyes light up at this proposition, and he says "Yay!". He then points to the ground beside her and warns, "Saya-nee, you should probably step away from that familiar, by the way."

She looks down to see the magenta crystal sliding its way toward her, and is thoroughly disgusted by the small hand with its manicured fingers dissolving into the familiar.

Feeling a pressure welling up in her chest, she steps away ten steps or so and looks at her weapon: a cutlass with a black handle and a gold handguard. There's a single blue stripe on the blade from the base to about a third of the way down it, and a curious point of the blade itself is the fact that it doesn't seem to be fully attached to the base like most regular swords, instead the blade looking like it's inserted into a groove on the handle.

_Hmm...does this come out...?_

She grabs the safe side of the blade and tries to detach it from its groove, but to no avail, which is probably for the better. However, upon doing this, she notices a black lever on the back part of the handle.

No, wait. Not a lever, but a _hammer._ Like a gun hammer. Which means a trigger has to be somewhere as well.

And true to speculation, there is a black trigger up by the base of the hilt, complete with the trigger guard.

_So I can shoot my blade out from here or something?_

She turns the weapon around some more and looks at the final component of the weapon: a golden magazine at the bottom of the hilt. She supposes it shouldn't be surprising, what with the trigger and the hammer, but it's so strange to see it on a sword. And besides, what does the magazine even hold? Does it hold blade replacements when it's shot or something?

_Well, it doesn't hurt to try..._

She points her blade at the familiar she just stepped away from, which is still slowly pursuing her but is roughly two meters away, cocks the hammer and pulls the trigger.

There's a barely bearable noise and the blade leaves the handle faster than she expected but probably slower than a bullet, and it impales the familiar, sticking into the ground with an audible cracking sound.

_Whoa..._

She notices something further in the blade: the blue stripe that was on the blade is now glowing brightly.

"H-huh? What's that supposed to do," she asks. _It's not glowing for no reason; maybe something will happen if I do this..._

She presses the trigger again, and the blue stripe now begins to recede toward the base.

"H-huh?"

The light reaches the base.

_'BANG'_

She loses her balance as unnatural blue sparks form around the blade and it finally explodes into a marvelous small ball of blue, her falling onto her butt in the process. She expresses how uncomfortable that was as she stands back up, rubbing her behind and wiping off her face. "Sheesh. I wasn't expecting that explosion..."

She looks at her weapon and points it in the general direction of the now-more-quickly-advancing familiars and pulls the trigger, just to see if something further happens, and now nothing happens anymore. Finally, it is just a husk.

_I suppose I need to reload another blade...Somehow..._

She searches the hilt itself and sees a little black button by the now-empty clip, and she presses it, prompting the magazine to fall out and clatter on the ground by her feet.

Obito is simply looking at her curiously, paying no heed to the advancing familiars which is not something that reassures her, but she needs to worry about getting her weapon back before she worries about the veteran who is charged with guiding her.

"Come on...if I was a magical magazine, where would I be...?" She searches her body, searching for a pouch or something similar on her skirt and shirt. Hell, maybe even pockets, but succeeds in nothing.

_Maybe under the cape?_

She lifts up the cloak and cranes her neck to look behind her, and notices something strange on the inside of the cloak.

_A pocket here of all places? Really?_

She reaches her hand into the pocket and pulls out a magazine, and the pocket _seals itself._

"Weird...but I don't have any right to be saying that anymore, do I," she wonders to herself as she puts the magazine into the hilt. However...

Nothing happens.

Sayaka sighs and goes to the one command that seems to make things happen with the weapon: pulling the trigger.

It did not disappoint.

Right after pulling the trigger, what looks like mercury pours out of the hilt and boils and shimmers, eventually hardening into the weapon she started with, though with the absence of the blue timer function. After a short moment, the blue stripe pushes forward from the base and rests at what looks like the appropriate spot.

"Alright, this is mad cool. For realz."

"Yeah, it's super cool," Obito says with enthusiasm that would make people think it was his own powers he were talking about. "But doesn't it have a more _Kamen Rider_ feel than it does a magical girl feel?

"

_He has a point..._

"Well, I guess, but let's not sweat the small stuff," Sayaka says, waving that disturbing connection off. "Anyway, let's go take down a witch—what the hell?!"

She was pumped to go and take down a witch, but felt that resolve go out of the window with the army she was faced with.

It seems the familiars, while she was trying to figure out what she—or rather, her weapon was capable of, decided to form together into something more dangerous.

And so, now they've all taken the forms of either human-sized serpents or knights, surrounding her from all sides in this plain, including the way they used to enter. Wonderful.

"Um, Obito-kun...?"

She turns toward the boy to request assistance, and she finds no one there: instead, a ruckus on her right side.

_"I'll handle this side, you take care of the others. I'm not like Hideki-nii in that I'll let you fight all of these alone in the name of training, Saya-nee." _Obito worms his way into Sayaka's brain and tells her this, and finds her opinion of Nakazawa has dropped a bit more.

Sighing, she turns to her group and brandishes her sword. _Well, let's see what I can do..._

The weapons of the knights range from swords to maces to spears, luckily no projectile weapons, and the serpents all have fangs that protrude far out of their mouths. All the more reason not to touch them, on top of the whole 'consuming human bodies' thing.

She shudders and then charges forward at the nearest familiar: a knight with a sword. She swings at it with all of her might, and it holds up the sword to block, but she cuts through both fairly easily with that one swing.

Huh. Easier than she thought.

However, there are still legions for her to slaughter.

A serpent slithers its way toward her and hisses. For whatever reason, she's tempted to hiss back, but instead opts to attack the monster by swinging downwards.

The monster slithers to the side and then opens its mouth. Inside it she can see a spigot-like formation, and nearly freaks out when she sees a liquid start to bubble out of the spigot.

_Oh snap._

She returns the favor and sidesteps the spray just like the snake did her, and points her sword, and fires her blade at the snake.

It sinks in with a sharp cracking sound and gets pushed back into a group of clustered familiars.

Not willing to pass up a chance to destroy a group, she presses the trigger again and after a moment, the mass explodes in the blue explosion.

She reaches into her cloak again to replace the magazine, but before she can even grasp the cartridge, she feels a blow from behind and she loses all ability to perceive vision. Not because she got knocked unconscious, but because she's moving pretty damn fast.

"Gh...!" She feels impact after impact knocking air out of her lungs and slowing her descent as she blows a line through the dense crowd of monsters.

She finally rolls to a stop in a clearing, and she just lays there, shivering from the pain.

_W-what the hell hit me? Don't tell me those knights or serpents were packing that kind of strength..._

After a bit of a struggle and labored attempts to fill her lungs, she picks herself back up shakily, and finds herself without a weapon.

"Shit..."

She cursed.

It was not her favorite thing to do.

And so, she cursed the monster for making her perform that unsightly action. "I hope I can produce more weapons or something..." _Constant reloading was going to end up biting me in the butt later on, anyway._

Since the magazine came from her cloak, she figures she'd find some swords in there too. But before she can even touch the cape, she hears two _'thunk'_s behind her.

"Eh?"

She takes hasty steps forward and whirls around, expecting an enemy, but instead sees two swords sticking up from the ground.

"Ehh?!"

She takes a couple steps forward to reach the two blades, and picks one up in each hand. "Ooh, dual-wielding. Call me a female Kirito," she says to no one in particular, and proceeds to look at the mass of familiars she just blew through.

Now.

What she saw was not something she expected.

In fact, it was so unexpected that she needed to take a double-take in order to grasp the situation.

There is a giant...thing in the center of the field. It has a royal blue humanoid torso, a turquoise serpentine lower body, a cluster of magenta gems on the end of the tail like a Morningstar, a scythe of the same color, and what looks like a metal helmet. She can see two magenta eyes glowing from within.

Beside it is a smaller version that all of the familiars are converging on. The monsters all rush the bigger one and the bigger one grows as it absorbs its fellow familiars, growing into the near-identical twin of the others, the difference here is that the helmet is magenta instead of the shiny metal of the other's helmet.

_"Um...Obito-kun?"_

_"I know. The bigger one with the metal helmet is the witch."_

She gulps and tightens her grip on her weapons.

_"I'll distract the smaller one," _Obito says, and she can see the boy across the field now that all the familiars are going away from him, _"You try your hand at the witch. I'll help you out if you're in trouble, Saya-nee."_

_"Okay...thanks."_

She steels herself and clenches her teeth, trying to calm her frayed nerves. She's shaking something fierce right now.

Unbeknownst to her, this feeling is one common among magical girls when they go on their first hunt. Actually, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that most feel this emotion regardless of how much experience they have.

This emotion is called fear.

She is scared. Terrified, even.

_Dang it...what am I getting scared for? I knew what I was getting into when I contracted!_

She takes a deep breath and does her best to suppress her fear.

Lowering her body by bending her knees, she eyes her target and grips her weapons tighter, then take off at a full run. As she approaches, she aims her blade at the monster and fires it at it, not even bothering to pause between trigger pulls. Right after the blade sinks into the witch it explodes, and she discards the empty hilt and reaches for another blade in her cloak, hoping it will fall into her hand or something. Instead of falling, however, she feels what's seems to be a handle in the cloak, and she pulls that out, a new sword now in hand.

As the explosion clears and she's finally within sweeping range of that massive scythe, she sees the witch missing the right portion of its torso, which unfortunately was the side without the scythe.

Panting, she rears her sword back to strike. She's prepared for it to swing at her with that sword (who knows how fast it can move), and is wary of any attack coming from her left.

However, when the witch spins around with its scythe extended and its tail swinging with it, she doesn't know how to respond.

If she remains how she is now; the scythe will decapitate her while the tail will shatter every bone in her body. She can't duck to avoid the scythe, because she'll get bludgeoned by the tail. She can't jump to avoid the tail; the scythe will cut her into slices like ham. She can't dodge backwards; she's too close to the witch to get to the safe area. She most definitely doesn't have the acrobatics to manage to jump into the air between the two, nor the ability to suspend herself there. Maybe if she was attached to strings like a puppet, but that's not how real life works.

_Please, please tell me I have some sort of evasive magic! Like disappearing into my cloak or something!_

She drops a sword and grabs her cloak, wrapping it around her and hoping for some sort of miracle...

And then nothing.

She didn't get hit by the witch. There was no impact. Just nothing. She couldn't feel ground anymore. Just motionlessness.

And then that motionlessness evolved into a freefall.

_H-huh?_

She opens her eyes to see what looks to be a floor made of stone bricks...very, _very _far down.

A pit forms in her stomach as her fear returns. Falling long distances is another one of those 'not her favorite' things.

"Oh my god...Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygoooddddddddddd!"

_Solid ground...solid ground, I need solid ground, but I don't want to become a stain on it!_

If wrapping herself in the cloak was what got her here, then she's going to have to do the same to get back.

She grabs the cloak again and wraps it around her, and once again her setting changes...

..._but she's still in freefall._

"What the heck?! Why am I still fallliiiiiinnnngggggggg?!"

She's looking down at the witch, though not at the same outrageous height as before.

_I have to break my fall...c'mon, think of something..._

She wracks her brain for a method that'll save her, and eventually she comes across a memory from an anime.

_Oh...this might work..._

She flips both of her swords backhand, and as she nears the witch, she draws her arms back and plunges the swords into the witch's remaining arm.

Her momentum carries her down the arm, leaving deep gashes into the crystal and the swords almost run out of material to dig into.

Letting out a sigh of relief, the witch begins to writhe, and she has to hold on with all she has to keep herself from falling the remaining ten feet or so the the ground. She may be able to handle it now, but it's still not something she would willingly do.

And besides; she's thought of a way to inflict more damage since she's up there.

Since the witch is spazzing out over the unexpected attack, she takes the chance to carefully change her grip back to standard form, cock the hammer and pull the trigger twice.

The speed at which her and the witch separate is so unexpected that she loses her breath and feels tremendous strain on her arms. She flies through the air for a good five seconds or so, then hits the ground. _Hard. _One could compare it to being hit by a tanker truck moving at one-hundred miles an hour while strapped to an indestructible wall.

"Ghk!"

She's writhing on the ground, clutching at her chest. She's fairly certain she's broken some ribs, and she can't even draw a breath yet.

And while she's opening and closing her mouth, pining for air like a fish out of water, she hears an enormous crash as the witch topples over, and a moment later an enormous booming sound occurs, sending a shockwave towards her that makes her roll over a couple times and hinder her progress at getting her breath back.

She pushes herself upright in a sitting position, finally being able to take at least small breaths, though each one feels like it's sending a knife into her chest.

_That was _not_ a good idea..._

She struggles into a standing position, and pulls another sword out since the two handles she had disappeared somewhere during her unprecedented flight.

She sees something that irritates her to no end: The helmet on the witch has hopped off of the body and is scurrying away.

She wears the mixture of a scowl and a grimace as she watches the helmet, or rather, the true form of the witch go, moving towards the familiar-made body that Obito is dancing circles around.

_"Hey, Obito-kun! The true form of the witch is that helmet! Can you get it?"_

She doesn't know why she yelled when she used telepathy, but that's not important.

_"Sure I can, I guess. Will you take on this familiar then?"_

Sayaka sighs and her thoughts drift to her probably-broken ribs. _"I guess I can...as long as I don't have to get up close."_

_"Is something wrong?"_

_"I might have broken my ribs. And it freaking hurts."_

_"Ah. Well, after watching what you did and hearing that, Saya-nee, I'm surprised you didn't collapse a lung or something as well."_

_"Gee, thanks."_

She cocks the hammer on her sword and points it at the large familiar. _"Get out of the way, Obito-kun. I don't want you to get caught in the blast."_

The younger boy rolls under a scythe swing and salutes at her, then shimmers out of existence.

_Wait, what?_

She expels the many thoughts rising in response to the strange occurrence and instead pulls the trigger. Twice.

She goes through the reloading motions and presses the trigger, watching the mercury-like liquid form into her blade, and she continues to fire at the familiar until there's nothing left but a bunch of scattered chunks.

"Heyo!"

A face appears in front of her dangling something terribly ugly, causing her to gasp and then fall to her knees because of the pain. _"D-dammit, Obito! Don't just show up like that! How do you even do that anyway?"_

He rubs the back of his head. _"Hehe, sorry. I can move faster than the speed of light, so I get kind of tempted to do that to people..."_

Sayaka begins to sigh, but stops as more pain comes over her chest. _"Whatever. I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it if I could react without hurting myself." _She motions to her chest. _"Ribs are still broken."_

_"Ah,_" he begins and hands her the witch, which he's holding by the lip of the helmet. _"I'll deal with that." _He holds his hands out towards her breastplate and a golden light envelops his hands and wisps flow towards her. In a manner of seconds, she feels something like a pressure being lifted from her chest.

And with that, she can finally speak out loud again without fear of massive pain. "Thanks, Obito-kun."

He salutes again. "No problem, Saya-nee."

She turns her attention to the monster in her hand. Then she turns it back to the blue-haired boy, who is looking at her expectantly. "You want me to kill it?"

He nods vigorously.

_Alright then..._

She pulls out a sword and lays the helmet on the ground, then turns the blade point down right over it. "Here goes nothing..."

She thrusts downwards, impaling the helmet, whatever was inside, and the ground. The helmet rattles, she hears a pathetic sound like a dying puppy whimpering, and finally everything around them begins to fade into the alleyway they had entered the labyrinth from.

She powers down and puts her hands behind her head to stretch. "Well, I guess that's tha—"

She cuts herself off.

There's some kind of black gem thing floating down to the ground.

"Hey, Obito-kun."

"Hmm?" The boy is staring intently at the object.

"What's that? Is that like the reward or something? The 'grief seeds' I head Kyuubey talk about?"

He nods. "You're a fortunate one, Saya-nee. Grief seeds don't always drop."

"Ah. I guess I am lucky the—what the actual heck."

Sayaka just witnessed something totally unfair.

A lavender ring appeared under the seed before it touched the ground, and it fell into that ring. And then that ring _closed up._

She knows only of two people who can use portals. Even though the appearance of the portal is different from their rings, it's safe to assume one of the two stole it.

Nakazawa Hideki or the kidnapper.

"Not fair..." Obito mutters, looking dejected.

For Sayaka, the emotions are on a whole 'nother level.

She speaks, her tone low and menacing.

"I just worked my ass off to get that damned grief seed, and they have the _nerve to steal it from me?_ I don't know who did it, but I'm going to beat both of their asses."

And they got her to curse, too. Oh, someone is going to die.

Obito seems to notice her bloodlust. "C-c-calm down, Saya-nee! I have another one right here, see?" He pulls out another grief seed and hands it to her, but she's almost tempted to throw it somewhere.

"It's not the same..." Though she complained, she grudgingly takes it in her hand and sighs. "I worked so hard for that thing..."

The boy makes a further effort to calm her down. "C-come on, Saya-nee! You may lost the grief seed, but you did gain valuable combat experience! Let's just purify our soul gems and call it a day, okay?"

_That doesn't make me feel better..._

She takes the grief seed and produces her soul gem in her hand. The gem is the standard azure that it was when she got it, but deep inside she can see blackness tainting the pure hue.

"So how do we do this? Do we just press it against it or something...?"

"Not necessarily. It should work if you hold it close enough."

"Hmm..." She moves the two objects closer, and eventually she sees inky black tendrils flowing from the gem to the seed. "Ohh..." _That's kind of cool..._

She hands the grief seed to Obito and turns her soul gem into the ring form, and begins to walk out of the alleyway. "Well, uh...it really hasn't gotten that late yet; how about we go and get some ice cream or something? Think of it as thanks for watching over me today."

Obito's eyes light up and he practically runs up beside her. "Really?"

"Really." _I hope he doesn't insist on me getting one for his imaginary friend...hopefully he just shares it with her instead of having me buy another._

And so, they walk out of the alleyway. But before she can even get a step in the direction she wants to go, someone bumps into her. The assailant barely moves while she is almost sent to the ground.

"Whoa whoa whoa." She stumbles and catches herself five steps into the recovery. "What in the..."

She drifts off as she sees the person in front of her.

The man in front of her has spiky dyed blond hair with menacing grey eyes, and is wearing a worn red hoodie with faded black cargo pants and a pair of worn-out converse. His face is clean-shaven, looks to be in his college years, and he stands at least a foot and a half taller than her.

"Oi. Watch where you're going, kid." His voice is rough, completing what she believes to be a perfect delinquent image.

"S-sorry..." _Asshole_.

He mumbles something and steps around her. "Carry your tail home, Bluey. You've gotta be out of your mind if you're out on your own when there's a kidnapper on the loose."

"Then what does that make you," Sayaka asks confrontationally. "You're out alone, too."

"Last time I checked, he was mainly after middle school age girls or below. Go home before the pedophile kidnapper gets you." He disappears behind the corner, leaving her fuming.

_Explain Kyousuke and the chef guy then, asshole._

She turns towards Obito, who is peeking out from behind the alley's bricks to look in the rude young adult's direction. "He was scary..."

"No he wasn't. He was just a punk," Sayaka corrects, and she beckons the boy out of the alleyway. "Let's go get that ice cream, then."

At the thought of ice cream the two of them feel a little lighter, and they walk down the street for the ice cream, which is unfortunately in the direction the man went. Hopefully they don't run across him again.

As they walk, she notices something.

That whole 'feel a little lighter' thing...it wasn't just a state of mind.

She _actually feels a little lighter._

She pats herself down and searches her skirt's pockets.

"No way..."

Obito looks up at her, confused. "What is it, Saya-nee?"

"I...think I lost my wallet."

The boy doesn't respond for a moment, only stares blankly at her and she wonders if she broke him. At least, until she sees the demon within him awaken.

"W-w-w-w-well we need to find it, then!"

Obito is agitated.

"...Yeah...we do..."

"Where did you l-last see it? At your apartment? Do you think Shouko has it? Or do you think we lost it on the way?"

She puts her hand on the hyperactive boy's head, pushing him back onto both feet. _He must really want some ice cream, huh? _"I'm one-hundred percent certain that I had it with me before we entered the witch's labyrinth, so..."

Obito's expression darkens. "Oh, so that man did pickpocketed you, huh...I can take care of that..."

"No, no. No you won't. I feel like I'm talking to a murderer." She sighs as she holds the boy back with one hand and pinches the bridge of her nose with the other. "Go peek around the corner and see if you can spot him. If not, come right back."

He salutes and carries out his mission. "Okay, now let's see..." She mutters to herself and tries to think of a way to locate the man in case Obito can't spot him. "I could go to the police, but he'll be long gone by then...There's magic, but do I even have any magic to find peopllleeeeeee yes I do!" _Probably._

Her wish verbatim was 'the power to find Kyousuke and the others'. She doesn't know how it works, but the power that she's yet to discover should be able to locate things not including Kyousuke and the other victims as well. Hopefully. It would be kind of lame if it would only work on them; what would happen to her once that objective is achieved, then?

"Okay. How to do this, how to do this...I hope I don't have to transform to do this..."

_Maybe it works the same way I have to transform, and I just tell myself I need to find something..._

She does just that, willing whatever form that power takes (assuming she even has it) into her outstretched hand.

"Oh...my...god..."

With the same blue light that appears when she changes her soul gem's state, a round object appears in her hand. When the light disappears, a gilded compass about the size of her palm appears, with the needle being azure where it is normally red.

"Screw the explosions; this is freaking AWESOME!"

She yells this in the empty street, making it seem louder than it actually is. "Whoops." She fixes her volume and turns over the compass, inspecting the surface.

On the bottom are some of the weird runes like the ones she saw on her ring. "Dammit, it's these things again...how do I even get this to do what I want?"

At this moment, Obito returns. "No sign of him," he says in a menacing low tone of voice. "So what do we do now?"

She holds her hand out. "We use magic, I guess. And don't speak in such a dissonantly menacing way. It's scaring me."

He shows no sign of caring. "Magic, huh...do you even know how this works, Saya-nee?"

She shakes her head. "Absolutely not." The face of the compass has the usual north-east-south-west layout, but the normal red-black layout is changed to an azure-white palette. "I'm kind of hoping these runes on the bottom are instructions or something, but I don't think many people on earth can read these."

He reaches for the compass, so she gives it to him. "Well, you're in luck. Hachibey taught me how to read these runes. These say 'Scribe your objective'. In other words, write what it is you want to find."

"...Wait, Hachibey? Who's that?"

"The alien that contracted me, Hideki-nii, Kyousuke-nii, and Kyou-nii." He hands back the magic item. "So? What are we going to do when we find the man? Are we going to punish him?"

"Nah." She answers immediately. "If you could, I'd like you to use your speed to get it back without him noticing after we find him."

He pouts. "...Fine...if you say so, Saya-nee."

She pats him on the head. "Good boy. Say, do you happen to have a Sharpie or something?"

He shakes his head. "Nope. That item of yours seems really stupid right now, to be honest. You made it; you should be able to get it to work without having to do something like writing down what you want to find on it."

"You think so...?" _It makes sense, yeah, but there's no helping it. If the contract was made that way, then that's just how it is._

Regardless of that line of thinking, though, she tries it out anyway. _I wanna find my wallet, I wanna find my wallet, I wanna find my wallet...!_

The needle starts to shake a bit at first, but then it starts to spin.

"See?" Obito looks smug, but still has the murderous aura he had earlier.

"Y-yeah..."

The needle stops spinning, and the needle is no longer split between two colors. Now it's fully blue, with the blue side having changed to an arrow and pointing north and the previously-white side having the point inverted, so that the space looks like an arrow itself. It points in a northwest direction, which would go through many, many buildings, but a faint blue dotted line appears in front of her and turns around the corner.

"Uh...Obito-kun? Do you see that?"

He looks confused, which managed to break him out of his murderous attitude. "See what?"

She points down at the ground. "That blue line there. Do you see it? It's almost like a guideline."

He slowly shakes his head. "Nope. No line there. It's probably a function to make it easier or something for the person with the device to find their way...I take back what I said; your magic isn't stupid. Forget I ever called your magic stupid, Saya-nee!"

"Whatever. It's fine." She grins. "So shall we go, Obito-kun?"

He nods vigorously. "Yeah! Let's go!"

And with that over-enthusiastic declaration. They walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And walked.

"Dang! Just how far did he manage to go?!"

"I don't know, but the line is getting brighter. That must mean we're getting closer."

Omincharao Obito's childish patience was wearing thin.

Miki Sayaka's feet were starting to ache.

The thing that was keeping her from giving up were the fact that she had 1,300 yen in her wallet. It may not seem like a lot, but it's a lot to her. Well, that, and because the wallet itself was expensive, so she didn't want to just give up on it.

The line, finally reaching its brightest, abruptly turned right into an alleyway, and Sayaka could tell that they had found the guy.

And so she reached the alley and stood in the entrance...

And then she stopped.

What she saw, what she heard...

It was enough to make her stop and scowl.

* * *

"1,300 yen..."

He holds the bills in his hand and sets the wallet carefully on the dumpster with gloved hands. Yet, even though he's obtained enough money to brighten anyone's day, his mood shows no sign of lightening.

"This isn't enough to reach my goal...maybe I can just take half and give the rest to _that_ bastard." _Or better yet; just not take it at all._

The thought of stealing from a fourteen year old girl leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, but he has no choice. His parents kicked the bucket a month or two ago in an accident and left him with a massive debt with some shady organization—a gang, as he had found out a couple weeks ago when they contacted him about inheriting it. Now they have him performing odd jobs, often illegal ones to bring in money to take care of it.

Take this pickpocketing, for example. This is not something he wants to be doing, but in order to ensure him or his siblings don't end up in a ditch or products in the human trafficking business, he has to go through with this.

"...Maybe I'll only take out two thousand or so...I don't want to rob this girl blind..." He mutters to himself.

He hears his ringtone on his phone.

He pulls it out of his pants pocket and reads the "Akatsuki' caller ID, and he feels himself wanting to break down in tears.

"Hello?" He answers it.

_"Hey there, Sakakibara Jouji-san! I was just calling to ask how the job's going!"_

He grimaces.

This is the Akatsuki gang's boss, Razor. Apparently he's the new head, since something happened to make the group disband sometime late last year. Something to do with a little boy and his family, he heard.

"Er...it's going fine, I guess. I've got seven of these wallets, working on the eighth. I've got about twenty thou before I add this one."

_"Oh? And how much will it be with the eighth?"_

He decides to try and pull one over on the boss. "Only about 500."

_"Really now?" _He sounds dubious, making the man gulp. _"How about you check it again? Don't you value you and your little sisters' lives?"_

_Shit..._

He silently takes the whole wad of money out and then looks around for where the man's watching him from. After some searching, he sees a black car parked on the side of the road in sight of the alleyway.

"What are you even doing all the way out here in Mitakihara, Razor?" The gang's base of operations is in Kasamino City, not Mitakihara. He has absolutely no reason to be here.

_"Just checking up on you. Making sure you don't get yourself into trouble. I care, you know."_

"No you don't. You just want to make sure you get your money." Jouji begrudgingly takes the rest of the money out and puts it in the bag with the rest of the thieved currency, and then swaps out the positions of the bag and the wallet. "I guess I'll go turn this in now..."

_"Aw, look at you trying to redeem yourself. News flash: it's not enough. You're an Akatsuki underling now."_

"I ain't no damn Akatsuki underling. And I know it's not enough; but it's a start." He spits out the words and hangs up the phone, then slips the wallet into his pocket and turns back to the entrance that he came and sighs. _I wish I was able to keep my old job at Bistro Tachibana instead of having to deal with this bullshit..._

He begins walking towards the exit, a portal back into his normal (and legal) life.

* * *

She grabs Obito's hand. "Quick, come on!"

The boy shows no sign of hearing her as she pulls him, and the boy's legs decide not to move. "We don't have time for this, come on!"

Still no response. She doesn't quite know at which point in the man, Sakakibara Jouji's conversation the boy froze up, but she knows it was towards the end. She was hoping he'd snap out of it by the time he hung up, but she set her hopes too high. The boy's eyes remain distant and glazed over.

She picks the boy up from under his arms and dashes around the corner, back the way they came.

The reason she's in such a hurry to get away is mostly because she's kind of scared of people who carry the 'trouble' aura like him. And also, from the fact that she was capable of hearing most of both sides of the conversation in the near-silent alleyway, she knows that he's in deep debt with a gang. She doesn't know exactly what they do if you don't pay up, but there is a degree of truth even in the television shows and movies she's watched, albeit usually small. Not only that, but he proved that he was sort of a good person in that he only tried to take half of what she had.

To sum this up: she doesn't wish to send this man to his grave over recovering a 'measly' 1,300 yen. If that amount can help him clear it, then she guesses it's fine.

She hears the man's rough voice grumbling about something and his footsteps grow more and more distant.

Sigh of relief inbound, followed by extreme uneasiness.

Said uneasiness is coming from Obito. The boy is truly scaring her with his catatonic state.

She lightly shakes the boy in her grasp and says something she hopes wakes him up. "Hey, Obito-kun. I have some ice cream at home, if you still want it..."

Slowly, but surely, focus returns to his eyes. "...Okay..."

_Wow. Didn't think that'd work._

"Alright," she takes her hands off of his shoulders and takes his hand. "Let's go get my wallet, and I'll go make you some ice cream when we get back, okay?"

And so, after that and a trip to the police box to retrieve the wallet, they went to her house and Sayaka made a bowl of neapolitan ice cream for her, Obito, and 'Shouko', who Obito had woken up to get ice cream as well. Instead of dirtying another bowl, she just gave Obito an extra scoop to share.

"Shouko said it's delicious!"

"Did she now?" After hearing him talk about this imaginary friend of his so much, she's been getting a bit curious. "Hey, why don't you tell me a little about Shouko-chan?"

He takes another bite of the ice cream and swallows. "Well, she's my sister, to start."

* * *

**A/N: And so, that takes care of this stupidly-long chapter. Good gracious, another 10k+ chapter...Aren't chapter sizes like that reserved for the big fics? Fics like Resonance Days, Imperfect Metamorphosis, and A Certain Unknown Level 0...whoops, I just shouted them out, didn't I? (First two: Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Touhou Project; written by TakerFoxx. Third: Toaru Majutsu no Index; written by MrQuestionMark)**

**So yeah, by the way, all of what you saw of Sayaka there is canon. Well, except the other dimension in her cape, eyepatch, and compass, of course. Yes, her sword really can shoot its blades, make them explode, and be reloaded, among other things, like turning into a snake sword/sword whip (think of it like Ivy's weapon in Soul Calibur) and being able to make the chain segments when its in that form explode as well. I hope we get to see some of its applications in the new project.**

**But anyway; leave a review, and I'll see you all again in the next chapter.**


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